The Bad Sleep Well (1960)

Toshiro Mifune stars in this Akira Kurosawa-directed gem. Who else were you expecting to star in a Kurosawa film? Really. But honestly, there's a good reason, and this film solidifies it for me. As I've said in previous posts, familiarity can breed either contempt or synergy. In this case, the latter. Before I get into that, the synopsis:

Mifune stars as Koichi Nishi, a secretary to Public Company VP Iwabuchi (played by Masayuki Mori). I won't give a way a lot of the details, because this film takes so many twists that should be kept a surprise for the viewer. What I can tell you is that Nishi has just married VP Iwabuchi's daughter, Yoshiko (and it's not listed in IMDb who plays her - sucky omission!). The opening of the film is at their wedding, where Assistant-To-The-Chief Wada (played by Kamatari Fujiwara) is being arrested on corruption charges stemming from goings-on at Public Corp. These corruptions have to do with kickbacks on a deal between Public Corp. and another large firm. Cover-ups abound, great lengths are gone to bring these corruptions, and subsequent cover-ups, to light, and also keep them hidden. I'll leave the rest a surprise to the viewers who haven't seen this one.

A bit of a departure from his costume epics, Kurosawa based this film firmly in the present, and with stellar results. The beginning wedding sequence is stunning to watch. The whole look of it, and the direction to his actors is so compelling to watch. Also, this is my favorite role I've yet to see Toshiro Mifune in, and I have seen many of his Kurosawa-directed roles, though little else. The man was is a bagillion films. Anyways, he didn't strike me as over-the-top, like his roles in Rashomon and The Lower Depths do. He was so grounded in this role, and it was so enjoyable to watch. Maybe it's the material in the costume epics that he did that lose me, but he just seemed to tangible in this film. I always appreciate that as a viewer. And despite Mifune's character going to some pretty hefty extremes, the viewer is always on board with him. His cause is righteous. It is very tough to write a character like that, so kudos to the writers. And Kurosawa knows how to handle Mifune, and Mifune knows how to handle his directions and material. It's like the two share the same brain.

The ending of this film got me very riled up. Angry. The final message that it leaves me with is one of helplessness and the unimportance of what an individual can do against powerful "machines." It made me mad, but not like Just One Of The Guys made me mad. This film has a very good reason for making people mad: anger like this can lead to action. This is actually a good piece of propaganda that could be used to rile people who say, "But what can I do? I'm just a little cog in the big machine," into action. At least that's what it did for me.

If you even remotely like Kurosawa, Asian films, or who-done-it thrillers, watch this film. It's so full and lush. A great ride.