the leading man is my tpye

Boring

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

A Japanese veteran, driven partially mad from the war, travels to the snowy island of Kameda where he soon enters a love triangle with his best friend and a disgraced woman.Akira Kurosawa has said, "Of all my films, people wrote to me most about this one. I had wanted to make The Idiot long before Rashomon. Since I was little I've liked Russian literature, but I find that I like Dostoevsky the best and had long thought that this book would make a wonderful film. He is still my favorite author, and he is the one — I still think — who writes most honestly about human existence." First of all, for Kurosawa fans, it is a shame the full, uncut version of this film is lost. You might think that three hours is already a long movie (and you would be right), but apparently the original cut was more in the realm of five hours. Considering in retrospect that Kurosawa may be the greatest Japanese director of all time (it is him or Ozu), any footage would be valuable...For me, what I really like is the use of Dostoevsky. Surely the author never thought his book would be used in a Japanese film, with a Japanese setting, but he never would have expected a film at all. Like Kurosawa, Dostoevsky is possibly my favorite author. He has a way of capturing the psychology of man and putting it on paper in a way no one else ever has. I'm not sure if this is what Kurosawa means about "human existence" (I think not), but we clearly agree on solid source material.

In 1951 Akira Kurosawa followed up his critical and commercial breakthrough Rashomon (especially outside Japan, where it become the first widely released Japanese film) with this strange adaptation of Dostoyevsky's famous novel (Kurosawa would return to form the next year with the widely acclaimed Ikiru). Masayuki Mori is the Idiot, who wants to do so much good to the world that he looks like an imbecile to most people. Toshiro Mifune is Akama (Rogozhin in the novel), showing a weird scowl during most of the movie. The entirely black clad femme fatale Taeko (Nastasya Filippovna in the original Dostoyevsky novel) is the object of their rivalry, and is played here by the legendary Japanese actress Setsuko Hara, still alive as of 2015, in a completely different register from the characters she played in the films of Yasujiro Ozu.Kurosawa originally made a 265 minutes (more than six hours!) film, and that version was shown to a preview audience, which reacted negatively to it. The studio then cut the running time to three hours, and Kurosawa more or less disowned the movie. It is believed that the original version no longer exists. Despite the cuts and studio interference, it is a fascinating, if completely anti naturalistic film. The movie looks like a mess, surely due to the studio cuts, but, with its melodramatic moments and ultra weird performances, is mostly a fascinating, enjoyable, if sometimes confusing mess.However, at three hours the movie is a bit too much (apparently it was shown in two parts of roughly an hour and a half). Watching a six hour movie of this is unimaginable to me.Set in Northern Japan after World War II (though the setting is really atemporal, as we see little of cars or other technologies of the time). The wintry Hokkaido locations are a plus.

It's pretty difficult to judge this film fully. The first half is erratic, and filled with jolting edits, characters that appear and disappear without any introduction. It's a damn shame. The scatological nature of this epic project, adapted from the Russian classic by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, was due to it being horrendously cut down by the studio that funded it. Originally, Akira Kurosawa had created a 266 minute cut of the - incredibly faithful to the source novel - was shortened by 100 minutes. Unfortunately, it would seem that the world may never see the original version, as even when Kurosawa hunted for the missing scenes in the vaults several decades later, he was unable to locate them.As it is in its now 166 minute format (the longest version available), it is still an incredibly important piece of melodrama. After the devastation of the war, Kinji Kameda (Masayuki Mori) and Denkichi Akama (Toshiro Mifune), travel back to a remote island. Kameda claims that he suffers from an illness, cause by the suffering of war, and simply referred to as idiocy - when expressed on film, this idiocy seems simply to be an innocent, and fundamentally naive view of people. He simply only sees good in people, even if this is not the case. On arriving they both seem to fall for a disgraced woman, Taeko Nasu (Setsuko Hara), who was someones concubine since the age of fourteen, and is being offered for marriage at a price.What ensues is a strange love triangle that divides not only the two male protagonists, but the community. The film is beautifully shot in black and white by Toshio Ubukata, who had worked with Kurosawa on his previous film, Scandal (1950). It is unfortunate that the films first half suffers so evidently due to extensive cutting. However, it is the relationship between Kameda and Akama that provides the climax (which is seemingly more intact) that provides the films central theme, and its most poignant elements.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

The Idiot:To me, Dostovesky's book is the Greatest story ever told. Akira Kurosawa adapted his beloved novel when he was at top of his creative prowess. Never fully-released, the film was to remain director's personal favorite for the rest of his life and his magnificent career. Even this vehemently studio-slaughtered cut, which unfortunately is the only version at hand, has retained some of the power, beauty, and, of course, humanity of the Maestro's original vision. Here is to its full recovery and restoration! 8/10