The Bad Sleep Well (1960)

I enjoyed Akira Kurosawa's medieval adaptations of Shakespeare (Ran, Throne of Blood), as well as his contemporary thriller, High and Low, but I have to say this contemporary thriller adaptation of Hamlet is the weakest of the bunch.

Not to say it's bad - it was still a great watch, just that it was way too long at 151 minutes. It's pretty amazing how Kurosawa made such a contemporary movie back in 1960 that it still feels fresh today. His direction is mostly tight and suspenseful and the movie is further augmented by an effective score and good acting all around, especially by Kurosawa stalwart, Toshiro Mifune.

But overly long it is, and less interesting scenes had my attention wandering. Maybe I should blame Shakespeare instead. Gawd knows I already find him long-winded and boring.

Fmovies: I haven't been that thrilled with the previous non-period piece movies of Kurusawa, so I was pleasantly surprised by this one. While it lacks the high style of films like Rashomon and Yojimbo, this is a compelling story . This movie is very Japanese. It is hard for me to comprehend the Japanese corporate structure shown in this movie, and it made me think of an American I met who has lived in Japan for years and says the more you see of the Japanese the more you realize that you don't understand them.

This creates an interesting dilemma in terms of analyzing the movie, because a lot of the actions and motivations are so odd that if I saw them in an American film I would consider them examples of a poorly thought-out screenplay. But I accept most things in this movie as simply being very Japanese.

This isn't to say that everything in the movie is nuts. Human nature is human nature, and the themes of corruption and revenge work in any culture. The story itself is well laid out and intriguing, and the acting is excellent throughout. My only real objection is to something that happens near the end, more for the way it was presented than for what happens, but perhaps once again this is something that would seem perfectly sensible if you were Japanese.

This movie might deserve an 8. My enjoyment of it was somewhat spoiled because I've developed cataracts in both eyes and reading subtitles is difficult, meaning I was less able to immerse myself in the movie. But definitely worth watching.

While the Seven Sumarai and Rashomon are wonderful Kurasawa flicks, too few people are aware that he made other great films that are NOT samurai films because they are rarely seen in the United States. Only osscasionally, they are shown on Turner Classic Movies or other channels and should not be missed.

One of the best examples of this is this movie. The Bad Sleep Well is extremely well-written and acted and keeps your attention from start (the cake scene) to finish (the final showdown). I love how Kurasawa does NOT follow the expected path in this and his other pictures. Anyone wanting something DIFFERENT should give Kurasawa a try. In addition, I would strongly recommend Kurasawa's Madadayo ("Not Yet") or Shubun ("Scandal") as among his lesser-known flicks you MUST see. Among his slightly more famous, try Throne of Blood (a GREAT remake of MacBeth) or Yojimbo.

FYI--this story is a slight re-working of Hamlet, though you might not notice it unless you are looking.

The Bad Sleep Well fmovies. For his first film made by his own independent production company, Kurosawa decided to take advantage of his new creative freedom to make his most politically daring picture to date. He takes on the corruption rife in corporate Japan in a film noir of almost epic proportions.

This was Kurosawa's most stylised film so far. He takes a nasty, tragic film noir plot-line (and yes, there are elements of Hamlet, but not enough to call it an adaptation) but plays it at some times as if it was a farcical comedy, and at others like it was a horror. The villainous characters appear slightly ridiculous and even cartoonish. Only the most senior amongst them, Iwabuchi, is allowed to keep his dignity. While the others are just puffed-up minions, easily toppled, Iwabuchi seems truly immovable.

The establishing scenes are the film's strongest. It opens, like The Godfather, with a lengthy wedding scene which serves to introduce all the principle characters and set the tone. Everything about the way this scene is put together tells us this is not the happy occasion it should be – the hall where the ceremony takes place echoes off-puttingly, a company official about to make a speech cringes as champagne corks go off behind him like gun shots. Add to this an interruption from the police, a gang of journalists and photographers waiting in the wings, and a best man's speech that turns from jokes to threats, and you can practically taste the corruption and decadence that is the focus for this story.

The wedding scene is followed by a montage of newspaper headlines and newsreel footage, reminiscent of similar devices used by Frank Capra and Raoul Walsh. Kurosawa brilliantly choreographs this sequence to music, a rather eerie little dirge more typical of a Japanese period piece than a modern thriller. It's the only example of this kind of montage I know of in Kurosawa's work (it was rare for him to expand the narrative to the bigger picture), but it's a highly effective one-off.

The central plot, of Nishi (Toshiro Mifune) orchestrating spectacular revenge against the men who killed his father, is full of amazing set-pieces. There are echoes of Hitchcock in the way Kurosawa shoves significant objects right up to the camera. The use of music is dazzling, combining upbeat music with unnerving moments to give a great sense of irony. Nishi is the last person the villains suspect, and he often appears innocently in the background with little more significance than an extra, although of course the audience knows better. It's a nice touch that Kurosawa has the character wear glasses, making Mifune almost unrecognisable to us as well.

Sadly, the film's pace slows down after the first hour, and rarely gets back to the same dizzying heights for the rest of its 145 minutes. The lengthy runtime does however allow Kurosawa to add a depth that is absent from your average 100-minute Hollywood Film Noir. Kurosawa could be bleak, but he never forgot the humanity in his films, and this is really the focus in the second half of the film. He takes time to put the spotlight on the innocent victims of revenge (Nishi's wife, Wada's family), and even show the arch-villain in moments of warmth and tenderness with his family. And this is perhaps where the story's biggest similarity with Hamlet is – Nishi's revenge falls apart because he is unable to be totally ruthless and unfeeling.

As for the acting, Masayuki Mori is particularly good as Iwabuchi. Just look at his reaction when the

The Bad Sleep Well is one of the best revenge movies of all time. It stars the great Toshiro Mifune as a man seeking revenge against the people who forced his father into committing suicide. Unlike many revenge movies, The Bad Sleep Well doesn't glamorize its subject. Instead it shows how in trying to get retribution for a man who is now dead, Mifune ends up injuring himself and other people he loves who are still alive. There are a lot of beautiful and haunting images, like when we see a desperate man struggling to climb a volcano so he can throw himself in, or a number of scenes that are shot at the bombed out wreckage of an old WWII munitions plant. The bleak landscape mirrors the damaged lives of the movie's characters. Powerful and haunting, this is a movie that will follow you for days.

The Bad Sleep Well is a great film, with excellent acting from all the actors, especially my favorite Japanese actor, Takashi Shimura as Moriyama. Kurosawa shows in this film that no one can or will ever top his skill at doing tableau shots. The wedding scene in the beginning of the film, where the reporters are standing just outside the doors of the reception hall, commenting on the goings on within, is fantastic. The ending seems very abrupt, almost as if they ran out of time while making the film, keeping this one out of the same league as other Kurosawa classics (7 Samurai, Stray Dog, Yojinbo).