Just saw 'Rashomon'

[xcellerate]

So a couple is going through the woods, and a thief kidnaps the husband and rapes the wife, then the husband dies from a stab wound. That's the story pretty much.

Then for the next hour you watch the same story get told 4 times, each time the woman cries in hysterics for 10 minutes and promptly falls to the ground after she commits any sort of action. This includes but is not limited to repeating the phrase, "stop looking at me like that" three thousand times.

The movie is basically a court, where you hear the thief's version, the woman's version, the dead husband's version, and some lumberjack's version of how the murder/rape went down. Then a baby is found, its clothes get stolen, people are innately evil and selfish, then the baby goes home with some dude who already has six children. Fin.

While the movie wasn't so awful i got up and left, that doesn't mean i didn't want to. I will admit it was better than I thought it was going to be, but I probably would have been just as entertained had the wall it was shown on been freshly painted and we all got to watch it dry.

So far i've seen: A trip to the Moon, The General, M, Battleship Potemkin, Stagecoach, The Awful Truth, Citizen Kane, Lying Lips, Singin in the Rain, Open City, Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux, and finally Rashomon. And the only ones that didn't waste my time were: The General, The Awful Truth, and Citizen Kane--and even those three would have been better had they been shorter.

 

[VictimOfScience]

Rashomon was interesting storytelling and a great examination fo what "truth" really is and I actually liked it quite a bit, but I can see where some might not care for it.

You should definitely try The Hidden Fortress, Seven Samurai, Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, Ran, Throne of Blood, or Yojimbo next to get a more savory Kurosawa taste back in your mouth. :thumbs:

 

[AmishSlayer]

A trip to the Moon...wasn't that a really old movie where a guy gets blasted into space and the movie had HORRIBLE special effects? I thought it was hilariously bad.

I saw Rashomon too and it was pretty boring. Some movies can pull off the themes like that but I don't think Rashomon did a very good job.

Wasn't that last fight just obscenely long too? I might be thinking of something else.

 

[CptStern]

didnt do a very good job? it was the first of it's kind ..all other movies lift that device from rashomon


that said ..I truely believe that most great films cant be watched in a vacuum ..it's better to know something about the history behind it in order to make a informed judgement

 

[kaf11]

I love Kurosawa and Rashomon was great. My favorites of his are Yojimbo and Sanjuro, but Rashomon was very different and very interesting.

Toshiro Mifune is perhaps one of my favorite actors. Despite the fact that I dont understand Japanese, his acting ability surpasses the language barrier more so than any other actor I know.

 

[xcellerate]

Well here's the thing, with all these old movies that i find boring, everybody says something like, "but it was the first movie of it's type!" yea...well that doesn't make it GOOD.

and yea, some of the stuff was really really drawn out. "stop looking at me like that!" "stop looks at me like that!!" "stooooop looking at me like that!" ....yea...Or the fight scenes, 3 minutes of shuffling around, yea it may be realistic, but that doesn't make it exciting or intresting. 'M' was a great movie...if it was about 30 minutes shorter.

 

[spookymooky]

Wow, what are the odds. I just performed as the priest in Rashomon last weekend. Had to shave my head and everything.

 

[Skaadi]

Rashomon was interesting storytelling and a great examination fo what "truth" really is and I actually liked it quite a bit, but I can see where some might not care for it.

You should definitely try The Hidden Fortress, Seven Samurai, Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, Ran, Throne of Blood, or Yojimbo next to get a more savory Kurosawa taste back in your mouth. :thumbs:

Dont forget Sanjuro!

 

[Lucid]

Damn, how the hell do people find out about these movies?

 

[VictimOfScience]

Damn, how the hell do people find out about these movies?

Culture...:cheese:

(Take that Angry Lawyer!)

 

[Laivasse]

Also bear in mind when you're watching a foreign language movie and some of the dialogue bugs you, that a lot of even professionally subtitled stuff isn't translated as stylishly as it might be. Hence, lines that are rare in English being repeated over and over, etc... It's hard but try to see past that.

 

[Maxwinner]

I LOVE this movie!


not Kurosawa's best though...