Customer Reviews

I Live in Fear [VHS]

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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.

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.

"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.

This film, originally "Record of a Living Being", is not among Kurosawa's greatest (Rashomon, Seven Samurai, etc.), which is just fine considering the achievements he has brought forth during his career. However, this film is good in its own way. First, Toshiro Mifune's role is different, as he plays a much older, family man, and plays it very well. Also, the entire film is good to sit through and is not dull. Plus, there is a clear message in the film about people who "live in fear" (although it is reiterated a bit too often). However, the best part of this film -- and perhaps the biggest reason to buy this movie -- is the ending. Here, Mifune's character gives one of his trademark, astonishing performances and mesmerizes, sort of similar to the way he did in "Rashomon". However, see the whole movie first before you fast-forward to the ending in the future.

Chronicle of an alive being explores the dramatis personae and brutal generational clash among the father of family and the rest of his family, when, product of the horrid shock of the Atomic bomb and the induced radiations, induce him to migrate to Brazil, although the rest of his family does not agree with him.

Victor Hugo affirmed the genius was always excessive and part of the genius of Akira Kurosawa must be seen under thus perspective.

A mature film loaded of dramatic intensity.