Movie Description
MADADAYO, Akira Kurosawa's 30th and final film, follows the life of an aging Japanese professor whose retirement coincides with the final years of World War II. Beloved by his former students, the professor often received them as guests in his home. That is, until his home is destroyed by an air raid. The students pool their resources and buy the professor and his wife a new house. In their new home, the couple gains a third member of the family, a stray cat named Nora, which the professor dotes on like a child. At one point, when Nora gets lost, a group of students dutifully search the city for the pet on behalf of their despondent professor. As the years go by, the students continue to hold annual birthday parties for their mentor. During these celebrations, they toast him with the question "Mahda-kai?" (meaning "Are you ready?" to go on to the next world), to which he humorously responds, "Madadayo," meaning "No, not yet." Based on the life of author and professor Hyakken Uchida, Kurosawa's last film is also somewhat autobiographical, echoing the final years of the revered filmmaker's own life. Tatsuo Matsumura plays the feisty yet sensitive professor with great gusto, while Kyôko Kagawa appears as his soft-spoken wife; other Kurosawa acting alumni play his enthusiastic and adoring students. A thoroughly sentimental film, MADADAYO is a touching meditation on life and its inevitable end.
| Credits | | Producer: | Hisao Kurosawa | | Cast: | Akira Terao, Hisashi Igawa, Kyôko Kagawa, Masayuki Yui, Takeshi Kusaka, Tatsuo Matsumura |
Notes
DVD Features:
Region 0
Keep Case
Interactive Features:
Scene Access
Interactive Menus
Text/Photo Galleries:
Filmographies & Awards
DVD-ROM Features:
Weblinks, Theatrical release: April 17, 1993 (Japan); September 1, 2000 (U.S., limited).
MADADAYO was shot on location in Gotemba City, Japan, and at the Toho Kinuta Studio in Tokyo, Japan.
Huge open sets were constructed at the Toho Kinuta Studio to represent the typical streets of WWII-era Japan.
Akira Kurosawa began production on MADADAYO only eight months after the release of his previous film, RHAPSODY IN AUGUST.
Kyôko Kagawa also appears in four of Kurosawa's earlier films--THE LOWER DEPTHS, THE BAD SLEEP WELL, HIGH AND LOW, and RED BEARD. When Kagawa starred in MADADAYO, she hadn't worked with the director in almost 30 years.
MADADAYO, Kurosawa's 30th and final film, also marked the 50th anniversary of his career as a director, which began in 1943 with SANSHIRO SUGATA.
Editorial Reviews
"...A serene, leisurely item about old age....Tatsuo Matsumura gives a dignified, sometimes quite comic, performance as the old man, and is given strong support..."
Variety - David Stratton (05/24/1993)
"...This is the kind of film we would all like to make, if we were very old and very serene..."
Chicago Sun-Times - Roger Ebert (03/20/1998)
"...An intimate affair....A swan song that's quietly passionate about life and gently philosophical about death..."
Entertainment Weekly - Troy Patterson (03/16/2001)
3 stars out of 5 -- "Lensed with patient serenity....[A film] about affection and aging."
Total Film - Jonathan Crocker (11/01/2007)
"There is inevitably an elegiac undertow to Kurosawa's final film, made when he was in his eighties."
Sight and Sound - Geoffrey Macnab (11/01/2007)
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o2bgJw~~_32.JPG "Madadayo (DVD, 2001)")
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