Rashomon (Japanese,1950)
Set in the pre-modern samurai era, this multiple awards winning film is a 1950 effort by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. He is one of the most respected directors that the world had ever seen.
This movie is different in that the story is looking at an event from many angles and have prophetic dialogues interspersed between scenes.
It starts with two men, a woodcutter and a priest sitting under a shade of a ruined shrine named Rashomon, waiting for the rain to settle down, wondering the meaning of the strange story that happened in the courthouse. A third man joins them. Hearing them brood about a peculiar case and the rain that was not going to stop any time soon, the third man coaxed them to tell the details of the complicated tale.
The woodcutter started with his story. He was walking along the jungle track. He came upon a dead body and informed the police. He was called to testify in an enquiry.
The next to testify was the priest who had earlier saw the dead man leading a veiled lady on horseback. The third witness saw the accused hit with eagle feathered arrows and had fallen off a white horse seen by the priest earlier.
The accused, an infamous gangster, Tajomaru, tells his side of the story. He liked the veiled lady, fell in love with her and tricked her male companion to follow him in the pretext of showing some swords. He ties him up and pours his lustful desires on the lady. Initially resisting his advances, she relented and reciprocated.
After the act, in the typical samurai fashion, a sword duel is initiated by the lady to win over the lady as she is shamed for having two men! The husband dies at his sword. By then, the lady had fled the scene and could not be found.
The lady was indeed found hiding in a temple and was brought in to testify. Her version is different from her predecessors. In her teary-eyed rendition, she related how Tajomaru had fled the scene after raping her, she could not stand to see her husband's loathing judgemental eyes. She had stabbed him with her dagger and tried in vain to commit suicide.
Even the dead man testified through a medium.
After the rape, Tajomoru had begged for the lady to marry him. He had promised to change his wayward ways for her. She agreed to follow him but asked Tajomoru to kill her husband first! Shocked, Tajomoru had wanted to kill her instead for uttering such words. In confusion, the lady fled the scene and Tajomoru ran after her, leaving the husband alone. The disappointed husband does a harakiri on himself with the wife's dagger, which was laying around there.
Coming back to the scene of the shrine and the rain, the two listeners are suspicious on the woodcutter's insistence that the murdered was killed by a sword, not a dagger as he was there at the scene of the crime. They cornered him to tell the real story.
He, under duress, told his side of the story. He had seen the lady instigating both the men to engage in a duel to win her over! The fight ends with Tajomoru killing the man. The lady flees from the samurai. Tajomoru runs away with the swords. The woodcutter steals the pearl covered dagger to sell it off for a fortune.
Back in the shrine, a baby cries and the three men argue. The third man runs away with the expensive kimono covering the baby. The woodcutter says it is inhumane. In reply, he accuses the man accuses him of stealing from the dead. Just when the priest thought that compassion has disappeared from mankind, the woodcutter volunteered to take care of the baby together with his six other children.
Interspersed with a philosophical chat about life, sin, men, women and behaviours of human in general, this film is a delight to watch with minimal dialogue and minimal props.
Set in the pre-modern samurai era, this multiple awards winning film is a 1950 effort by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. He is one of the most respected directors that the world had ever seen.
This movie is different in that the story is looking at an event from many angles and have prophetic dialogues interspersed between scenes.
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| Rashomon |
The woodcutter started with his story. He was walking along the jungle track. He came upon a dead body and informed the police. He was called to testify in an enquiry.
The next to testify was the priest who had earlier saw the dead man leading a veiled lady on horseback. The third witness saw the accused hit with eagle feathered arrows and had fallen off a white horse seen by the priest earlier.
 |
| The man, woodcutter, priest |
After the act, in the typical samurai fashion, a sword duel is initiated by the lady to win over the lady as she is shamed for having two men! The husband dies at his sword. By then, the lady had fled the scene and could not be found.
The lady was indeed found hiding in a temple and was brought in to testify. Her version is different from her predecessors. In her teary-eyed rendition, she related how Tajomaru had fled the scene after raping her, she could not stand to see her husband's loathing judgemental eyes. She had stabbed him with her dagger and tried in vain to commit suicide.
Even the dead man testified through a medium.
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| Wife |
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| Tajomoru |
 |
| Man |
Back in the shrine, a baby cries and the three men argue. The third man runs away with the expensive kimono covering the baby. The woodcutter says it is inhumane. In reply, he accuses the man accuses him of stealing from the dead. Just when the priest thought that compassion has disappeared from mankind, the woodcutter volunteered to take care of the baby together with his six other children.
Interspersed with a philosophical chat about life, sin, men, women and behaviours of human in general, this film is a delight to watch with minimal dialogue and minimal props.
Very long winded strory!
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