Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru

English title: The Bad Sleep Well

Genre: corporate and psychological drama (in black and white) 

With: Toshirô Mifune (Kôichi Nishi), Masayuki Mori (Iwabuchi, VP of Public Corporation), Kyôko Kagawa (Yoshiko, Iwabuchi’s daughter), Tatsuya Mihashi (Tatsuo, Iwabuchi’s son), Takashi Shimura (Moriyama, Administrative Officer), Kô Nishimura (Shirai, Chief of contracts), Takeshi Katô (Itakura), Kamatari Fujiwara (Wada, Assistant Chief of contracts), Ken Mitsuda (Arimura, President of Public Corporation), Someshô Matsumoto (Hatano, President of Dairyu Construction)

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Screenplay: Hideo Oguni, Eijirô Hisaita, Ryûzô Kikushima, Shinobu Hashimoto and Akira Kurosawa

Release: 1960

Studio: Toho Co., Ltd., Kurosawa Productions

Rating: -

MBiS score: 8.7/10 

 

If You Find One Cockroach, There’s Bound to Be More 

  

QuickView

Story-line: what was supposed to be a happy day at the Public Corporation for Land Development – the wedding between Yoshiko, the Vice President’s daughter, and Nishi, an up-and-coming executive – is marred by regrettable events. (1) Scandal-seeking journalists are on hand, looking for clues of corruption between PCLD and a construction firm, (2) one of its senior managers, Wada, is arrested by the police, (3) the bride’s brother makes an off-key speech at the banquet and (4) an anonymous prankster sends a second wedding cake that could be seen as a warning to the corporate brass. As Shakespeare would say, ‟Something’s rotten in the state of Japan”.

Pluses: remarkable acting by Toshirô Mifune, Masayuki Mori and a very adept cast, flawless direction by a world-renowned helmer, a brilliant and devilish screenplay, excellent cinematography, fine production values, a varied musical score attentive to every circumstance and a potent finale.

Minuses: this movie is rather long (at 150 minutes) and doesn’t reveal its big secret until the 80-minute mark… but what a captivating watch it is from beginning to end!

Comments: having seen a few period dramas by Akira Kurosawa, I was astounded by THE BAD SLEEP WELL, a modern film noir inspired by the American movies he loved so much. And this picture is so intense, evil and tragic that some reviewers have compared it to HAMLET. It’s the kind of story in which every character ends up damaged in some way, either by the excesses of corporate culture, the injustices of life or a love that goes awry. This one’s very close to perfection!

  

MBiS 

© 2024 – All rights reserved