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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com essential video:
This 1950 film by Akira Kurosawa is more than a classic: it's a cinematic archetype that has served as a template for many a film since. (Its most direct influence was on a Western remake, The Outrage, starring Paul Newman and directed by Martin Ritt.) In essence, the facts surrounding a rape and murder are told from four different and contradictory points of view, suggesting the nature of truth is something less than absolute. The cast, headed by Kurosawa's favorite actor, Toshiro Mifune, is superb. --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - One of the Best
This is one of the BEST movies I've ever seen. Although the rape and murder are told from four different perspectives, I left the movie thinking what really happened (that is, what truly happened) was actually yet another story.
Rating:  - Great, but end bombs
Akira Kurosawa had been a filmmaker for almost a decade, since his 1943 debut film Sugata Sanshiro, and had some renown in his native Japan, when, in 1950, his film Rashomon rocketed him to international acclaim, including the Academy Award For Best Foreign Film, after winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival brought the film and its director, and Japanese cinema, a Western audience. He deserved every plaudit he received for it, as well as every ticket sold, because it is an excellent ... Read More
Rating: - Kurosawa's synoptic story
Everytime I watch "Rashomon," I'm reminded of the problem of the synoptic gospels. How can three accounts of the same person differ so much in detail? And do the differences between them render them false?
It seems to me that Kurosawa invites viewers to reflect on memory, narrative, and accuracy in this gripping synoptic account of the murder of a husband and the rape of his wife. That the two crimes took place is indisputable. But the four witnesses to them--a woodcutter, the wife, ... Read More
Rating:  - I wouldn't call it a masterpiece
Let me start off by saying I love Kurosawa and have seen many of his films, but this one was a little slow and felt too simple and shallow. I got the point of what he was trying to say almost immediately (truth is relative and depends on the person and that everyone's version of a story is told to make him or her look best), and didn't need to go through every character's perspective to get that point. It felt like he painfully belabored the point and not much else was added to make the plot interesting. ... Read More
Rating:  - Grossly over rated...
A Japanese film from the 50's and winner of many awards including the Best Foreign Language Film at the 25th Academy awards. The film shares the different accounts of 4 witnesses of a rape of a woman and suspected murder of her husband - the 4 witnesses being a notorious bandit, a samurai and his wife, a woodchopper who tripped into the scene and a Priest who crossed paths with the samurai. The 4 separate accounts have many commonalities yet conclude quite differently - and are shared by the Woodcutter and ... Read More
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