A middle-aged bureaucrat with terminal cancer determines to do something useful with the remainder of his life in this Kurosawa...
A middle-aged bureaucrat with terminal cancer determines to do something useful with the remainder of his life in this Kurosawa classic.
"It’s the story of office worker Kenji Watanabe, superbly played by Takashi Shimura, an actor in almost every Kurosawa film who rarely played a leading role. This 'ordinary’ bureaucrat, in late middle age, is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and the news leads him to re-assess his life, and his determination to achieve something worthwhile before he dies. Living is one of Kurosawa’s most humanistic films, but also one of his most ironic, which the later sequences indicate." (David Stratton, Sydney Film Festival)
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98 %55 reviewsRotten Tomatoes® rating
97 %20,464 reviewsAudience score rating
"Often heavy-handed but never less than heartfelt, Ikiru (To Live) is universal in its thrust and startlingly astute in its narrative engineering."
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Village Voice
Village Voice"Kurosawa performs a tour-de-force in keeping a dramatic thread throughout and avoiding the mawkish."
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Variety
Variety"Kurosawa's eclectic style is a delight: his striking, varied compositions reflecting the old man's journey from darkness to some kind of light right until the moving finale."
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Time Out
Time Out"Kurosawa achieves the piercing emotion and poetry of the Italian neorealists, but by opposite means: he doesn't make the camera disappear; instead... he deploys his camera so sharply and unerringly that it seems to take X-rays of the spirit."
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The New Yorker
The New Yorker"It is a strangely fascinating and affecting film, up to a point."
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The New York Times
The New York Times"I think this is one of the few movies that might actually be able to inspire someone to lead their life a little differently."
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Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert"Meticulously constructed, beautifully played and poignant."
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Empire Magazine
Empire MagazineLiving (1952) | Details
Award winner- Winner of the Special Prize of the Senate of Berlin (Kurosawa), 1954 Berlin International Film Festival
- Runtime
- 143
- Genre
- Drama
- Country of origin
- Japan
