Product Details

• Actors: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki, Eijirô Tono, Eiko Miyoshi
• Directors: Akira Kurosawa
• Producers: I Live in Fear ( Ikimono no kiroku ) ( Record of a Living Being ), I Live in Fear, Ikimono no kiroku, Record of a Living Being
• Format: Import, PAL, Subtitled
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 4 (Read more about DVD formats.)
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: AV Channel
• Run Time: 99 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000HKH01A
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #455,842 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Australia released, PAL/Region 4 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada: LANGUAGES: Japanese ( Mono ), English ( Subtitles ), SPECIAL FEATURES: Black & White, Interactive Menu, SYNOPSIS: When an elderly, wealthy man decides that nuclear holocaust is eminent in his country, he decides to move his family to Brazil at all costs--a place which, for some mysterious reason, he believes to be safe. His family refuses to move because they fear that the move will jeopardize their financial well-being. Nakajima burns down his foundry to force them to go to Brazil but, instead, they go to the courts and have him declared mentally incompetent. After several more increasingly irrational acts, he is finally placed in a mental asylum, where he sits staring at the sun, believing that he is on another planet and the sun is the raging inferno created by the Earth when it went up in the nuclear holocaust--vindicating his actions. A strong indictment against the inherent evils of nuclear warfare, it is also the story of a man's love and dedication to his family in the face of his own fears and endangerment. SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Cannes Film Festival, ...I Live in Fear ( Ikimono no kiroku ) ( Record of a Living Being )

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nuclear Paranoia From A Master, October 17, 2000

By 

Jerome Wilson (Greenbelt, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Live in Fear [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This 1955 release is one of those smaller Akira Kurosawa films that is overlooked in favor of his bigger films like "Rashomon" and "Seven Samurai" but it's still worth seeing. The great Toshiro Mifune plays an industrialist in post-World War II Japan who is slowly going mad with the notion that a nuclear war is coming and tries to convince his family (and his mistresses) to flee Japan with him. Mifune's obsessive portrayal is the stuff of great tragedy especially as he vainly pleads with his greedy family to leave and Takashi Shimura, the samurai leader in "Seven Samurai", is also effective as a counselor who tries to help straighten the mess out. The movie captures Japanese dread about the atom bomb, a subject Kurosawa would also treat in his masterpiece, "Ikiru", very well and with the greedy family closing in on a raving patriarch, brings to mind "King Lear", a tale the director would go back to many years later in "Ran". This is a small film from one of the world's great directors but a very good one.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A heartbreaking film, December 21, 2006

By 

J. Mullarkey - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Live in Fear ( Ikimono no kiroku ) ( Record of a Living Being ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.4 Import - Australia ] (DVD)

Forget "Ran" Kurowsawa did "King Lear" far better with a post-war Japan setting and adding the fear of nuclear testing into the story of a family business. Toshiro Mifuna was 35 when he played a 63-year old man fighting for his dignity against a family trying to have him declared incompetent. His perfomance is flawless. I grew up in a family business. I saw this film at 20 and then again at 42 and it unnerved me both times. Watch closely as the daughter-in-law moves from the margins to the center with her outrage at the old man's treatment by the family. I kid you not, this was one of Kurosawa's best.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars just must see, July 18, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: I Live in Fear [VHS] (VHS Tape)

"Toshiro Mifune was the most logical of any other his movie." It will be when you watch the VHS in your house TV that you know this mean. And you may notice the fact you don't notice now. Very educational, however, has unique pathos with tear in my eyes.