Akira Kurosawa

Rashomon

Rashomon

A riveting psychological thriller that investigates the nature of truth and the meaning of justice, Rashomon is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made. Four people give different accounts of a man’s murder and the rape of his wife, which director Akira Kurosawa presents with striking imagery and an ingenious use of flashbacks. This eloquent masterwork and international sensation revolutionized film language and introduced Japanese cinema—and a commanding new star by the name of Toshiro Mifune—to the Western world.


Rashomon was restored by the Academy Film Archive, the National Film Center of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and Kadokawa Pictures, Inc. Funding provided by Kadokawa Culture Promotion Foundation and The Film Foundation.

Film Info

  • Japan
  • 1950
  • 88 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.33:1
  • Japanese
  • Spine #138

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Audio commentary by Japanese-film historian Donald Richie
  • Interview with director Robert Altman about Rashomon
  • Excerpts from The World of Kazuo Miyagawa, a documentary on Rashomon’s cinematographer
  • A Testimony as an Image, a sixty-eight-minute documentary featuring interviews with cast and crew
  • Archival audio interview with actor Takashi Shimura
  • Original and rerelease trailers
  • Optional English-dubbed soundtrack
  • PLUS: A new essay by film historian Stephen Prince; an excerpt from director Akira Kurosawa’s Something Like an Autobiography; and reprints of Rashomon’s two source stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, “Rashomon” and “In a Grove”

New cover by Kent Williams

Purchase Options

Collector's Sets

Collector's Set

AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa

AK 100: 25 Films by Kurosawa

DVD Box Set

25 Discs

$319.00

Out Of Print

Collector's Set

Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films

Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films

DVD Box Set

50 Discs

$650.00

Out Of Print

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Audio commentary by Japanese-film historian Donald Richie
  • Interview with director Robert Altman about Rashomon
  • Excerpts from The World of Kazuo Miyagawa, a documentary on Rashomon’s cinematographer
  • A Testimony as an Image, a sixty-eight-minute documentary featuring interviews with cast and crew
  • Archival audio interview with actor Takashi Shimura
  • Original and rerelease trailers
  • Optional English-dubbed soundtrack
  • PLUS: A new essay by film historian Stephen Prince; an excerpt from director Akira Kurosawa’s Something Like an Autobiography; and reprints of Rashomon’s two source stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, “Rashomon” and “In a Grove”

New cover by Kent Williams

Rashomon
Cast
Toshiro Mifune
The bandit
Machiko Kyo
The woman
Masayuki Mori
The man
Takashi Shimura
The woodcutter
Minoru Chiaki
The priest
Kichijiro Ueda
The commoner
Fumiko Honma
The medium
Daisuke Kato
The policeman
Credits
Director
Akira Kurosawa
Executive producer
Masaichi Nagata
Producer
Jingo Minoura
Scenario
Akira Kurosawa
Scenario
Shinobu Hashimoto
Based on two stories by
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Photography
Kazuo Miyagawa
Art director
So Matsuyama
Music
Fumio Hayasaka
Lighting
Kenichi Okamoto

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Explore

Akira Kurosawa

Director

Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa

Arguably the most celebrated Japanese filmmaker of all time, Akira Kurosawa had a career that spanned from the Second World War to the early nineties and that stands as a monument of artistic, entertainment, and personal achievement. His best-known films remain his samurai epics Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, but his intimate dramas, such as Ikiru and High and Low, are just as searing. The first serious phase of Kurosawa’s career came during the postwar era, with Drunken Angel and Stray Dog, gritty dramas about people on the margins of society that featured the first notable appearances by Toshiro Mifune, the director’s longtime leading man. Kurosawa would subsequently gain international fame with Rashomon, a breakthrough in nonlinear narrative and sumptuous visuals. Following a personal breakdown in the late sixties, Kurosawa rebounded by expanding his dark brand of humanism into new stylistic territory, with films such as Kagemusha and Ran, visionary, color, epic ruminations on modern man and nature.