The Bad Sleep Well: The Higher Depths
By January 05, 2006
A gray flannel ghost story in which the living haunt the dead, The Bad Sleep Well (1960) remains the least appreciated of Akira Kuro-sawa’s midperiod collaborations Read more »
- Japan
- 1960
- 150 minutes
- Black and White
- 2.35:1
- Japanese
- Spine #319
SYNOPSIS: A young executive hunts down his father’s killer in director Akira Kurosawa’s scathing The Bad Sleep Well. Continuing his legendary collaboration with actor Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa combines elements of Hamlet and American film noir to chilling effect in exposing the corrupt boardrooms of postwar corporate Japan.
Cast & CreditsOpen
Cast
| Koichi Nishi | Toshiro Mifune |
| Public Corporation Vice President Iwabuchi | Masayuki Mori |
| Tatsuo Iwabuchi | Tatsuya Mihashi |
| Moriyama | Takashi Shimura |
| Keiko Nishi | Kyoko Kagawa |
| Contract Officer Shirai | Kô Nishimura |
| Itakura | Takeshi Kato |
| Assistant-to-the-Chief Wada | Kamatari Fujiwara |
| Public Prosecutor Nonaka | Chishu Ryu |
Credits
| Director | Akira Kurosawa |
| Screenplay | Shinobu Hashimoto, Eijirô Hisaita, Ryuzo Kikushima, Hideo Oguni and Akira Kurosawa |
| Producer | Akira Kurosawa and Tomoyuki Tanaka |
| Music | Masaru Sato |
| Cinematography | Yuzuru Aizawa |
| Editing | Akira Kurosawa |
| Production design | Yoshiro Muraki |
| Costume design | Shoji Kurihara |
Disc Features
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- A 33-minute documentary on the making of The Bad Sleep Well, created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create
- Original theatrical trailer
- New and improved subtitle translation
- New essays by film critic Chuck Stephens and director Michael Almereyda (Deadwood, Hamlet)
