Critic Rating
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Director
Akira Kurosawa
Cast
Takashi Shimura,
Haruo Tanaka,
Nobuo Kaneko,
Bokuzen Hidari,
Miki Odagiri,
Shinichi Himori
Genre
Drama
After being diagnosed with terminal cancer, Mr. Watanabe vows to make his final days meaningful. His attempts to communicate his anguish to his son and daughter-in-law lead only to heartbreak. Finally, inspired by an unselfish co-worker, he turns his efforts to bringing happiness to others by building a playground in a poor neighborhood, but is unsure if he will live to see its completion.
Ikiru is a stand out in Kurosawa's classic filmography. Following Mr. Watanabe's grave diagnosis and subsequent anxiety and acceptance, the film takes the audience through a journey of action and self-discovery. At once melancholy and uplifting, Ikiru is an essential viewing for any Kurosawa fan.
Ikiru is a criminally overlooked Kurosawa film. It's stylistically striking and philosophical, and surprisingly life-affirming although it begins with the morbid premise of a dying man. Kurosawa captures a transforming postwar Japan as astutely as Ozu.
Total Film
This is the flip side to his samurai films, an introspective, naturalistic contemporary drama combining progressive social criticism with a universal humanist message.
Los Angeles Times by Mark Chalon Smith
Like “Stray Dog” and “Drunken Angel,” it illuminates a reeling society while telling a story of deep human emotion.
LarsenOnFilm by Josh Larsen
The genius of Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru is the way this deeply sentimental film continually deflates sentimentality.
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
A thoughtful, existential meditation about the meaning of life and what constitutes a life well-lived, Ikiru is almost guaranteed to prod the viewer to examine his or her own mortality and ponder how, in the end, the scales will tip.
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
Over the years I have seen "Ikiru" every five years or so, and each time it has moved me, and made me think.
Total Film by Staff (Not Credited)
This is the flip side to his samurai films, an introspective, naturalistic contemporary drama combining progressive social criticism with a universal humanist message.
TV Guide Magazine by Michael Scheinfeld
A beautiful and unusually quiet film from one of the world's greatest living directors.
Village Voice by Nick Pinkerton
Were it the only film Kurosawa ever made, his name would be rightfully engraved on film history.
Chicago Reader by Don Drucker
It avoids all the maudlin cliches and blind alleys of examining the “meaning of life,” giving us instead a rare portrait of a man experiencing a genuine insight into what his wasted years have been leading to.
Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington
One of the greatest films--Akira Kurosawa's poignant 1952 masterpiece Ikiru...is both a tragicomedy about how our best intentions are misinterpreted and a profound meditation on an old man's reactions to impending death. [26 Sep 2003, p.C2]
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
This masterpiece of 1952 is one of the gentlest, subtlest tales from one of Japan's all-time-great filmmakers, combining the sweep of a novel with the intimacy of an elegy. [10 Jan 2003]
Variety
Kurosawa performs a tour-de-force in keeping a dramatic thread throughout and avoiding the mawkish. It is technically excellent with a telling Occidental-type musical score.
Time Out
Kurosawa’s eclectic style is a delight: his striking, varied compositions reflecting the old man’s journey from darkness to some kind of light right until the moving finale.
Slant Magazine by Clayton Dillard
Ikiru wows for its complicated interrogation (and innovation) of subjective, cinematic experiences of time and memory, but lulls in its commemoration of a wealthy, privileged man who finally decides to care after it’s absolutely confirmed he has no time left to live.
New York Daily News
Akira Kurosawa's talent for analysis, interpretation and projection is again apparent in "To Live." [30 Jan 1960, p.22]
The New York Times by Bosley Crowther
If it weren't so confused in its story-telling, it would be one of the major postwar films from Japan. As it stands, it is a strangely fascinating and affecting film, up to a point—that being the point where it consigns its aged hero to the great beyond.
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