Ikimono no kiroku

1955 [JAPANESE]

Action / Drama

14
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 73% · 11 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 76% · 500 ratings
IMDb Rating 7.3/10 10 6248 6.2K

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Plot summary

An aging foundry patriarch, gripped by terror of nuclear annihilation, tries to uproot his family to Brazil. When they petition to have him declared incompetent, a family-court counselor witnesses his obsession slide into ruin—and asks whether ignoring the atomic threat is any saner.

Director

Top cast

Hiroshi Tachikawa as Ryoichi Sayama
Kokuten Kôdô as Workers' Older Family Member
Senkichi Ômura as Skinny Jailbird
Haruko Tôgô as Yoshi Nakajima
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
951.1 MB
934*720
Japanese 2.0
PG
Subtitles us  fr  
23.976 fps
1 hr 43 min
Seeds 1
1.72 GB
1392*1072
Japanese 2.0
PG
Subtitles us  fr  
23.976 fps
1 hr 43 min
Seeds 14

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by CinemaSerf 7 / 10

This is a far cry from the usual

This is a far cry from the usual Kurosawa/Mifune effort; indeed in this, Toshirô Mifune is almost unrecognisable. No brave, honourable Samurai this time, but an elderly foundry-owner who is paranoid about the potential impact of nuclear war on his family. To this end, he is determined to sell up and relocate his family to Brazil. The family don't fancy this idea much and try to have him certified. What ensues is a battle of wills, priorities and personalities set against a traditional set of Japanese family structures and values. Viewed, largely, from the perspective of independent arbiter "Dr. Harada" (Takashi Shimura) who has been drafted in to help settle the matter amicably; we visit the perfectly valid (though frequently selfish) approaches taken by both Mifune and his family - who have plenty of scores to settle amongst themselves - as the film tries to establish the best course of action to satisfy both parties. There is quite an interesting scene mid-way through when at the height of their dispute, the old man returns to the court armed with bottles of pop which he has bought for his family to help combat the unrelenting heat, indicating that he clearly still cares greatly for his family, even though they are at loggerheads... and for me, that rather sums the whole thing up - there isn't necessarily a right or wrong solution; it's about individuality and choice but ultimately the happiness of others; and Mifune is great. I found the last fifteen minutes quite sad, perhaps building on the old adage about families and money. Japan, for a good while, struggled to reconcile itself to the realities of a post-Hiroshima threat, so from an observer some 6,000 miles away it can be hard to understand just how viscerally the danger of repetition was taken by many - this film is a thought provoking, emotional - and, at times humorous, glimpse into that fear.
Reviewed by AlsExGal 7 / 10

One of Kurosawa's lesser known films

Akira Kurosawa's I LIVE IN FEAR (1955) is one of his lesser-known and sadly underrated films, with a revelatory performance by Toshiro Mifune as a character nearly double his real age at the time. Mifune plays the old owner of an iron foundry who has become so paranoid about the possibility of another atomic attack that he first tried to build a bomb shelter and now is planning to move his entire family to a farm in Brazil.Naturally his adult children and even his wife have no desire to move from their comfortable Tokyo home and try to get him declared mentally incompetent. Takashi Shimura is a dentist serving as conflicted judge on the court mediation panel. This excellent look into the personal psychology of 1950s nuclear paranoia is a huge step above the numerous propaganda films of the era and an ideal complement to the numerous allegorical sci-fi horror films from the same period (especially GODZILLA, from the year before and also starring Takashi Shimura), as well as some of the more interesting Cold War post-apocalyptic films like WORLD WITHOUT END (1956) and PANIC IN YEAR ZERO (1962).
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