Review of Rashomon (1950) by Reilly J — 31 May 2010

I recently watched my first Akira Kurosawa film, It was his 3 and a half hour epic Seven Samurai, and it was amazing, great characters, great dialogue, awesome battle scenes, not so great bald wigs, and amazingly influencial, I didn't think it got any better than that,.

And then I watched this. Rashomon, and what can I say? Holy fuck would be an understatement. I dunno where you'd class this movie, what's it's genre? Is it a thriller? An action? A drama? Fucked if I know, it was so damn good!

It's about a wood cutter, a priest and a drifter who shelter in a burned out building called Rashomon, the woodcutter tells of how he found the body of a murdered samurai in the woods and the priest tells of the trial and repeats the story of what happened from the perspectives of three different people, first the bandit who killed the samurai (or did he?), then the wife of the samurai who was raped by the bandit (or was she?), and then of the murdered samurai (was he murdered though?) who talks through a medium.

The three stories all differ from each other and in the end which one do we trust? How did the event occur? Are any of them telling the truth? How do we know anything is true? Is anything true? What the fuck is truth?

On top of that the film is well acted, exceptionally well filmed, has some awesome sword fights, mind-blowing, thought provoking, philosophical dialogue, and, I dunno how, but it's very, very engaging and fast moving, everything a cinephile could ask for! And it's only 88 minutes long!

Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon did for the Japanese film industrym what Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock did for the Australian film indrustry, it opened it up to the whole world and for that needs preserving, no one will ever forget this movie after seeing it!

I need to watch more Kurosawa! This was totally unforgettable and one of the best movies I've ever seen! I give this 5 outta 5 stars man! 5 outta 5 stars! Totally fucking unreal!