Ikiru

If you liked this

Wild Strawberries1957

Bergman's aging professor takes a road trip through his own memories and regrets on the day he's honored for a lifetime of achievement he now doubts meant anything. Same quiet reckoning, different country.

But Dream sequences and Swedish austerity can feel a world away from Kurosawa's warmth if you're not in a patient mood.

Tokyo Story1953

Ozu's masterpiece, made a year after Ikiru in the same postwar Japan, watches an elderly couple discover their grown children have no real room for them. Devastating without raising its voice once.

But Nothing dramatic happens on purpose. If you need plot momentum, this will feel glacial.

About Schmidt2002

Jack Nicholson plays a man who retires and discovers the emptiness underneath decades of dutiful work, an American cousin to Watanabe's crisis with more bile and more jokes.

But Nicholson's Schmidt is prickly and often unlikeable in ways Watanabe never is, which some viewers find hard to root for.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Ikiru

Cast

• 
  Takashi ShimuraKanji Watanabe
• 
  Haruo TanakaSakai
• 
  Nobuo KanekoMitsuo, son of Kanji
• 
  Bokuzen HidariOhara
• 
  Miki OdagiriToyo
• 
  Shinichi HimoriKimura
• 
  Minoru ChiakiNoguchi
• 
  Minosuke YamadaSubordinate Clerk Saito
• 
  Kamatari FujiwaraSub-Section Chief Ono
• 
  Makoto KoboriKiichi Watanabe, Kanji's Brother
• 
  Nobuo NakamuraDeputy Mayor
• 
  Atsushi WatanabePatient

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