The story reflects on the economic wars between the United States and Japan and the aftermath of the bombing of Nagasaki, by focusing on three generations of two related families: an American family of pineapple growers in Hawaii and a Japanese family living outside Nagasaki. –Inbaseline
The son of an army officer, Kurosawa studied art before gravitating to film as a means of supporting himself. He served seven years as an assistant to director Kajiro Yamamoto before he began his own directorial career with Sanshiro Sugata (1943), a film about the 19th century struggle for supremacy between adherents of judo and jujitsu that so impressed the military government, he was prevailed upon to make a sequel (Sanshiro Sugata Part Two). Following the end of World War II, Kurosawa’s career gathered speed with a series of films that cut across all genres, from crime thrillers to period dramas. Among the latter, his Rashomon (1951) became the first postwar Japanese film to find wide favor with Western audiences. It was Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai (1954), however, that made the largest impact of any of his movies outside of Japan. Although heavily cut for its original release, this three-hour-plus medieval action drama, shot with painstaking… read more
Reunion, remembrance and reconciliation, of young and old and the Nagasaki generation; with its secluded analogy for Japanese-American bonds within its household, and of time’s cooling effects. A thoughtful penultimate work - gentler, but with a graceful, Ozu-like framing of domesticity and candour that grants fluidity to Kurosawa’s more direct historical didacticism.
I had trouble with the structure, child acting and reading. Rojaku beauty but lacked yugen for me and there wasn't enough hana to make up for it... The blocking was aesthetically pleasing, but the 90s university t-shirts really turned me off. Still, a couple of really great scenes... Worth a watch.