Movies... For Free! Rashomon (1950)

Showcasing classic movies that have fallen out of copyright and are available freely from the public domain (with streaming video!)...


Rashomon, 1950.

Directed by Akira Kurosawa.
Starring Toshiro Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyo, Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki, Kichijiro Ueda, Daisuke Kato and Fumiko Homma.

Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon combines two stories from Ryunoske Akutagawa (regarded as "The Father of the Japanese short story") and is heavily influenced by the director's interest in the silent film form. It provided Kurosawa with his international breakthrough (being the first Japanese film to be screened in post-war America) and went on to win a host of awards including an honorary Academy Award and the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

Featuring a small cast of eight characters and minimalist sets, Rashomon recounts the murder of a samurai and rape of his wife from four differing perspectives: the bandit (Kurosawa regular Toshiro Mifune), the wife (Machiko Kyo), the samurai (Masayuki Mori) and a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura).

For more on Rashomon, check out Trevor Hogg's Epic Dreamer: An Akira Kurosawa Profile.


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