The Bad Really Do Sleep Well

This Criterion dvd, which was released earlier this year in January, is not only one of the great Akira Kurosawa films but one of the greatest crime films ever made. It was made in 1960, a year before Yojimbo (1961), and for some reason it gets overlooked when you read surveys or reviews of Kurosawa's work. Probably because High and Low (1962), his definitive crime movie, was released both on video and dvd before this film, thus getting more exposure? Or is it because it is more complex and longer (2 1/2 hours)? It does feel staged like a play, and it has been said that William Shakespeare's Hamlet was an influence on the story. It is about a young executive (played by Toshiro Mifune) who plots to bring down a group of company higher-ups, because they caused his father's murder. The opening scene is classic, one of the great suspenseful sequences in cinema -- it opens to a wedding reception, and we are introduced to the characters from the point of view of a group of reporters who are covering the event. It is though their eyes that we are drawn into the story, becoming more and more curious as events unfold. The wedding cake is brought out, with various objects that allude to the father's murder. The reporters know they have a story, the perpetrators are aware that someone knows, and our movie begins. Mifune uses a company man (who was stopped from committing suicide) to haunt the killers, going so far as to chalk his face to appear like a ghost. The Mifune character is also involved with the main company man's daughter, who also has a brother who is threatening to kill him if he makes his sister unhappy. Layers upon layers. The ending is not so upbeat, Mifune is killed in an old WWII bunker or underground dwelling, but the villain loses the respect and love of his son and daughter; they ostracize him. When I saw this, I could not help seeing this as a samurai film dressed in contemporary clothes, and reading the notes, this point is view is mentioned. The staging and unfolding of the plot and the characters all are reminiscent of Kurosawa's period piece films, or even other films, like Harakiri. The revenge elements, the scheming and plotting of one man against a larger and more powerful group of men, the dehumanizing effects that power and money can have, are not restricted to any one time period. A classic and one of my all time favorites.