By turns tragic and transcendent, Akira Kurosawa’s film follows the daily lives of a group of people barely scraping by in a slum on the outskirts of Tokyo. Yet as desperate as their circumstances are, each of them—the homeless father and son envisioning their dream house; the young woman abused by her uncle; the boy who imagines himself a trolley conductor—finds reasons to carry on. The unforgettable Dodes’ka-den was made at a tumultuous moment in Kurosawa’s life. And all of his hopes, fears, and artistic passion are on fervent display in this, his gloriously shot first color film.
Cast
| Rokkuchan | Yoshitaka Zushi |
| Rokkuchan's mother | Kin Sugai |
| Shima | Junzaburo Ban |
| Shima’s wife | Kiyoko Tange |
| Masuda | Hisashi Igawa |
| Tatsu, Masuda’s wife | Hideko Okiyama |
| Kawaguchi | Kunie Tanaka |
| Yoshiko, Kawaguchi’s wife | Jitsuko Yoshimura |
| Ryo Sawagami | Shinsuke Minami |
| Sawagami’s wife | Yoko Kusunoki |
| Beggar | Noboru Mitani |
| Beggar’s son | Hiroyuki Kawase |
| Hei | Hiroshi Akutagawa |
Credits
| Director | Akira Kurosawa |
| Producer | Yoichi Matsue |
| Music | Toru Takemitsu |
| Cinematography | Takao Saitô |
| Editing | Reiko Kaneko |
| Sound | Fumio Yanoguchi and Hiromitsu Mori |
| Script supervisor | Teruyo Nogami |
| Executive producers | Kon Ichikawa, Keisuke Kinoshita, Masaki Kobayashi and Akira Kurosawa |
Mar 18, 2009
Writer, critic, and film lecturer Teruyo Nogami also served as one of Akira Kurosawa’s principal assistants. Hired as script supervisor on 1950’s Rashomon, Nogami went on to work on all of Kurosawa’s...
by Stephen Prince
Mar 10, 2009
Akira Kurosawa made Dodes’ka-den (1970) during the most crisis-laden period of his career. He had just spent two years embroiled in an ill-fated venture with...