The late Akira Kurosawa's shamelessly sentimental last film is a fond and fitting farewell.
Madadayo(まあだだよ)
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Japan · 1993
2h 14m
Director Akira Kurosawa
Starring Tatsuo Matsumura, Kyōko Kagawa, Hisashi Igawa, George Tokoro
Genre Drama
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Akira Kurosawa’s final film, a tale of a German professor who resigned prior to World War II after 30 years of teaching. The film centers around the relationship he has with generations of students whom he taught, and his isolating life as a writer in postwar Japan.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Unabashedly personal and uncool...but between you and me, dear reader, I love it to death.
San Francisco Chronicle by Bob Graham
This warm, celebratory and very public film is punctuated by sudden and luminous private visualizations.
The New York Times by Dana Stevens
It's not one of Kurosawa's great films.... But it is, within its own proportions, nearly perfect.
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
Wordy, wearying drama.
Philadelphia Inquirer by Desmond Ryan
A profound and deeply moving exploration of facing death with dignity.
San Francisco Examiner by G. Allen Johnson
It is an important work, and a very good one.
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
Has the expressionistic simplicity of Kurosawa's other late films.
Kurosawa's farewell film is full of sentiment, tears, toasts and songs.
Portland Oregonian by Kim Morgan
Little spectacle but much bittersweet sensitivity.
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