Don’t think I liked this very much. Kind of hard to engage with, and also I never entirely bought the then 35 year old Toshiro Mifune as a man twice his age (or thereabouts). If Kurosawa was going to cast the older actor Takashi Shimura in the film (as he did), it would’ve made more sense giving him the part of the older man, and giving Mifune the part of the court counsellor. I don’t know. Either way, I can kind of understand why it’s not generally considered one of Kurosawa’s best.
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