4:3 fullscreen, japanese audio 2.0 with english subtitles, 139 min (original ratio 1.66:1) Early low-priced Hong Kong edition
Masterpiece and maybe my favourite Akira Kurosawa
film. This is as far from hysterical shouting Samurai's in fancy armed suits
running hither and dither you can get. Supposedly Kurosawa made this film
at a personal lowpoint, when he was seriously
depressed and had tried to commit suicide.
The film reminds me a bit about his earlier "The
Lower Depths" with the exception of the black humour have being skipped
and with Kurosawa instead giving us a story blacker than black about the miserable
Human situation