Rashomon (1950)

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Movie Details

• Genre: Drama, Suspense/Thriller
• Release Date: 2009-05-29 Limited
• Running Time: 88 min.
• Director: Akira Kurosawa
• Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyô, Masayuki Mori, Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki, Kichijiro Ueda, Fumiko Honma, Daisuke Katô
• Producer: Minoru Jingo
• Writer: Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto
• Distributor: Janus Films
• Official Site: Rashomon (1950) Official Site

Recent American mindbenders such as Memento and Mulholland Drive wouldn't even know what time it is without this 1950 Kurosawa classic, which remains the definitive big-screen statement of the relativity of truth--as well as the best-known Japanese movie ever made. The story is simple: In 12th-century Kyoto, a ruthless bandit (Toshiro Mifune) ambushes a samurai warrior (Masayuki Mori) and his wife (Machiko Kyo), tying the man to a tree and raping the woman right in front of his eyes. But how exactly does the samurai die and the wife disappear? Apprehended by police, the bandit claims that the woman forced the two men into having a duel, and that he won. The wife implies that she fainted and then awoke to discover a dagger mysteriously buried in her husband's chest. An eyewitness argues that the bandit killed the samurai accidentally. And did I mention the dead samurai's testimony from beyond the grave, in which he claims to have committed suicide out of shame? Rashomon's point that no one can ever really tell it like it is may have become a little quaint over time, but the movie still looks and sounds thoroughly modern--and Marlon Brando's early '50s Method of swaggering in a soiled T-shirt has nothing on Mifune's truly bestial turn as the bandit. But enough of my interpretation. How do you see it? (Rob Nelson)