Synopsis
The husband, the wife… or the bandit?
Four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.
Four people recount different versions of the story of a man's murder and the rape of his wife.
Рашомон, A vihar kapujában, Demonenes port, Às Portas do Inferno, Lã Sinh Môn, Sari Irkin Sehveti, El bosque ensangrentado, Расьомон, 라쇼몽, Rashômon, Rašomonas, Ρασομόν, 나생문, Rashomon - demonernas port, Rashomon - paholaisen temppeli, 罗生门, Luo Sheng Men, Rashomon - Às Portas do Inferno, Расёмо́н, Расёмон, Raşomon, Rashomon – Das Lustwäldchen, Rašomon, Rasomons, Rasiomonas, Rashomon – paholaisen portti, Demonernas port, Rašómon, Ռասյոմոն, რასიომონი, راشومون, רשומון, রাশোমোন, റാഷമോൺ, ராஷோமொன், रशोमोन, రషోమాన్, ರಾಶೋಮನ್, ราโชมอน, La Porte de la Vie, Rashomon - Das Lustwäldchen, Rashomon - paholaisen portti, Rashōmon, Ρασομόν: Η Γκέισα και ο Σαμουράι, ראשומון, Рашьомон, Dæmonernes port, Lã Sanh Môn, რაშომონი
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
The reading of this film is so often incorrect.
Many like to believe it speaks to the notion that several people can view the same incident and interpret it in different ways through no fault of their own, and the different "interpretations" of the incident speak to human subjectivity.
But that is not what this film is about.
This film is about several people viewing and/or experiencing the same incident and then lying about it to other people because the lie benefits them more than telling the truth. They aren't "misinterpreting" the incident - they are lying about it, and they are doing so on purpose.
Their "interpretation" of the incident is not what they believe, it's what they want…
my third kurosawa. feminist but also totally not, amazing camerawork, overall a good time that’ll probably be stuck in my head for the next few days.
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
50/100
Blasphemer! But this just plain isn't the radical exercise in subjectivity that its champions claim. "I've seen so many men getting killed like insects," intones the priest at the outset, "but even I have never heard a story as horrible as this. This time I may finally lose my faith in the human soul." Because people lie for self-serving reasons? Welcome to since ever. The four stories aren't (as some folks implicitly suggest) variant good-faith interpretations of an unknowable event, subject to bias and the vagaries of human perception; these accounts are so radically different that three of the four simply have to be lying through their teeth, and it's fairly clear that the woodcutter's tale, despite his own…
Mifune is awesome because at any given moment you think he’s about to headbutt the camera
I understand why this is considered a groundbreaking piece of cinema but I just can't get past the hysterical crying and maniacal laughing ITS JUST TOO MUCH IM SORRY
I promise I'm not rage baiting with this review! This is my first Kurosawa and the #1 thing I took away from this is I need to see more, stat. That being said, maybe it's the 2026 in me talking but the way this movie treats the wife is like how the manosphere talks about night shift nurses. Maybe it's intentional, maybe it's because it's 76 years old, or maybe I missed something on the screen that would have ameliorated it for me but it sort of took away from the rest of the story for me. Also I read the short story in 9th grade because my English teacher was cool so I might have shot my Rashomon wad off back in 2003 already.
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
spoilers and possibly triggering topics discussed in the third/fourth paragraph
funny how the movie that's come to be associated with the "rashomon effect" hits harder when you strip the gimmick away. this is a story of bottomless cruelty and cutting selfishness. it's not about good-faith interpretations of a confusing event or how we see the world through different eyes but rather about the self-serving lies of men who have left morality far behind. human beings reconstruct narratives in the way that casts them in the best light, especially when there is not much light to begin with.
what’s horrifying is not that the story told by four different individuals is especially confusing or even terrible but that there’s not a…
There was a moment only a little while into this film when I became aware of a device Kurosawa was using. Each of the four people who speak at the trial face the camera directly. We never hear from the court, and that's because we are the court. At that moment, I got that feeling in the pit of my stomach that cinephiles live for, that "Oh man, this is something truly special" feeling.
I wasn't wrong. In Rashomon, truth isn't just subjective, it's non-existent. It's a revolutionary idea to communicate through cinema, arguably the art form most closely associated with "truth" as we perceive it. I think it was Godard (or maybe Truffaut?) who said, "Cinema is truth 24…
My roommate one year in college had the same laugh as Mifune in this. The earth shook whenever he laughed.
One of my many unwatched classics.
I am going to use the most undeserving word to describe this film, but I can't think of another. Mesmerizing.
It is absolutely amazing how perfect a feat of storytelling this is. There are a lot of present day directors who can learn a lot about how to structure and pace a story. All they have to do is watch this masterpiece.
Kurosawa's plays with perspective, without losing sight of the central story or themes. And there is a lot to digest here. It is so much more than a story about crime told from different perspectives. That, in itself, could have been enough, but this film adds a striking and appealing philosophical depth…
Ok, this is the sort of opinion that loses me followers, but I have to take a stand. I love Akira Kurosawa, as a director and as an artist. But Rashōmon, the film that made him world famous, is a hollow mess. It is Kurosawa's attempt to create a film with meaning, which is the polar opposite of why his films succeed. Seven Samurai is a classic treatise on heroism, precisely because it isn't presented as a philosophical think-piece. Ikiru works because it is knowingly naïve and hence cynical. With allusions to truth and the inherent flaws of the subconscious, Rashōmon is the epitome of lazy filmmaking. It can pass off mistakes as purposeful and deliberately be obtuse. For. No.…