r-downey1

Rashomon (1950) has all of the charm and atmosphere of an Akira Kurosawa production. However the subject he explores and the tale he tells to us viewers this time round is much more unsettling and much less lighthearted than many of his mainstream movies.

I first bought Rashomon on DVD a few years ago as I had just recently became a big Kurosawa fan after having watched several of his most influential works including Ikiru (1952), The Hidden Fortress (1958) and not to mention Seven Samurai (1954). All of which had ranked well among my favourite films of all time. So I thus had to check out more. And this was recommend to me and being a fan of Murder Mysteries the plot's summary excited me.

Set in 17th century Japan, Rashomon tells the dark tale of a vicious confrontation between a ruthless bandit (Kurosawa regular Toshiro Mifune), a wealthy samurai (Masayuki Mori) and his beautiful wife (Machiko Kyo) during which the husband is killed and his body discovered by a local woodcutter (Another regular Takashi Shimura).

However upon going to trial all four testifier's, including the bandit, the wife, the dead man (speaks through a local medium) and the woodcutter each give four completely different accounts of what actually happened that fateful day and which make no connection whatsoever with the last.

Who is telling the truth? Is only one of them being honest? Are they all lying in order to present themselves in a good light? Or are they all lying to deliberately cover something up? Are they merely giving their own accounts of what happened through there own eyes and from there own points of view? Could Woodcutter's account as the only commoner and passer by on the scene truly be the genuine Revelation of what happened that afternoon? Or is he too holding back on something in order to keep the REAL TRUTH from the audience?

All the joys of a "who done it" only much more thought provoking and far more deep in the long term sense. Though a black and white film that does not prevent the camera from creating many colourful and mystifying shots aided by the use of light. The Japanese landscapes are again beautiful and the music haunting thus delivering a peaceful setting to this overall tragic tale and making this an unforgettable movie experience.

The nearest the 20th century got to Shakespere. Rashomon is without doubt ranked among my twenty movies list and is definitely in my opinion one of the top ten movies of all time in terms of being well made.

A must see classic. 9/10 stars.

First of all I am by no means a Shawshank hater nor I'm I here to troll the film or its fans for it being ranked this high on the IMDb top 250. Shawshank I must say is a rather enjoyable watch with a decent performance from Tim Robbins, a particular good one from Morgan Freeman, a decent storyline and a nice ending. However that said I would not put it anywhere near my top 50 movies list and I'm pretty sure I could name at least 30 films, twenty of which are not even ranked in the 250 that are IMO way better than Shawshank in their use of story telling and making you study them in your head even after you've watched them many times. It would perhaps be safe to say that what ever it does for many other people it just didn't do for me. The story was fairly predictable from start to finish and although I did appreciate its ending I found it to be too much your typical Hollywood sort of ending where every things happy and all loose ends have been tied up etc. I've now seen this movie four times and I must say I still find it to be very overrated, when I see it voted number two of all time then I think of how there are so many other movies out there not even in the 250. Oh well I guess popularity polls can never be just the way one would like them to be. Overall I give The Shawshank Redemption 6/10 stars I would have given it a seven or a eight only with the amount of high votes and rankings its got over the years on this site, I just felt it wasn't in need of such charity. As stated above a very enjoyable prison drama but just nowhere near in the same league as The Godfather, Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings trilogies. But hey thats only my opinion and thats what makes us all different isn't it?