FILM SCREENING
Windows on Mifune: Rashōmon

This event is fully booked

Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the publication of the short story Yabu no naka (In a Grove) by Japanese writer Akutagawa Ryūnosuke in 1922, Japan House London is delighted to present free screenings of Rashōmon (1950), the first in the film season Windows on Mifune exploring the filmography of renowned actor Mifune Toshirō.

A story of violence and mystery, the plot revolves around the murder of a samurai and the violation of his wife in a forest, and the attempts to find the culprit through the wildly differing versions of those present at the incident: a woodcutter who was passing through the area; the samurai’s wife; the victim himself, summoned by a medium to participate in the trial; and the main suspect, a notorious bandit played by Mifune, whose performance and range of emotion was internationally regarded as magnetic and feral.

Adapted from two short stories by Akutagawa, including In a Grove, this ground-breaking movie directed by acclaimed film director Kurosawa Akira rewrites the approach to storytelling by narrating the same major dramatic occurrence from four different perspectives, introducing an element of narrative uncertainty by depicting the conflicting, unreliable viewpoints of the main witnesses.

Winner of the Golden Lion at Venice (1951) and the Oscar for best foreign film (1952), Rashōmon is widely considered one of the greatest films of all time which introduced Japanese cinema to a worldwide audience and brought attention to Mifune as an icon of masculinity.

This film is in Japanese with English subtitles. Duration: approx. 88 minutes. Please note that this movie is rated 12 and is therefore not considered suitable for an audience younger than 12 years old unaccompanied.

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