The Bad Sleep Well
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| 悪い奴ほどよく眠る The Bad Sleep Well |
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|---|---|
 Original Japanese poster |
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| Directed by | Akira Kurosawa |
| Produced by | Akira Kurosawa Tomoyuki Tanaka |
| Starring | Toshiro Mifune |
| Music by | Masaru Satô |
| Cinematography | Yuzuru Aizawa |
| Editing by | Akira Kurosawa |
| Distributed by | Toho Company Ltd. |
| Release date(s) | 1960-09-19 |
| Running time | 151 min |
| Language | Japanese |
| IMDb profile | |
The Bad Sleep Well is the English title for 悪い奴ほどよく眠る (Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru), a 1960 film by the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa.
The first film to be produced under Kurosawa's own independent production company, it has been widely (and, perhaps, unfairly) dismissed as a minor piece within the acclaimed director's filmography.
It stars Toshiro Mifune as a young man who gets a prominent position in a corrupt postwar Japanese company in order to expose the men responsible for his father's death. The film is Kurosawa's unofficial Hamlet, reportedly the director's favourite Shakespeare play. It also doubles as a critique of corporate corruption.
Koichi Nishi (Toshiro Mifune) wants revenge for his father's death. Nishi is a complex man, playing the troubled Hamletesque character, who lets his father's past destroy his own future. Nishi is the easiest character to draw parallels with Shakespeare's play. Nishi seeks to avenge the unnatural death of his father. Maysayuki Mori's performance as the evil Iwabuchi resembles the Claudius figure. Beyond the primary figures it becomes increasingly difficult to draw character parallels between Kurosawa's The Bad Sleep Well and Hamlet (with the exception of the Horatio figure and Nishi's accomplice). Nevertheless, the underlying themes of circumstance, revenge, and justice, connect the film and play.
The Machiavellian atmosphere of Elsinore court easily transfers to the corrupt corporate culture seen through Kurosawa's eyes.
[edit] External links
- The Bad Sleep Well at the Internet Movie Database
- Criterion Collection essay by Chuck Stephens
- In depth review of film at Alternative Film Guide
| Japanese Cinema |  |
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| Films directed by Akira Kurosawa | ||
| 1940s | Sanshiro Sugata | The Most Beautiful | Sanshiro Sugata Part II | The Men Who Tread On the Tiger's Tail | Those Who Make Tomorrow | No Regrets for Our Youth | One Wonderful Sunday | Drunken Angel | The Quiet Duel | Stray Dog | |
|---|---|---|
| 1950s | Scandal | Rashomon | The Idiot | Ikiru | Seven Samurai | I Live in Fear | Throne of Blood | The Lower Depths | The Hidden Fortress | |
| 1960s | The Bad Sleep Well | Yojimbo | Sanjuro | High and Low | Red Beard | |
| 1970s | Dodesukaden | Dersu Uzala | |
| 1980s | Kagemusha | Ran | |
| 1990s | Dreams | Rhapsody in August | Madadayo | |
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