Ikiru-"to live"
"Life is brief, fall in love, maidens...Before the crimson bloom fades from your lips...Before the tides of passion cools within you...For those of you who know no tomorrow...Life is brief, fall in love, maidens...Before our raven tresses begin to fade...Before the flames in your hearts flicker and die...For those to whom today will never return..." (Theme Song)
Ikiru (生きる) is a 1952 Japanese motion picture written and directed by the acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa and inspired by Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Ikiru looks at the struggles of a Tokyo bureaucrat and his final quest for meaning.
Takashi Shimura, who played in many of Kurosawa's films (most notably as the leader of Seven Samurai), as Kanji Watanabe. Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades.
After realizing he has gastric cancer, giving him less than a year to live, Watanabe attempts to come to terms with his impending death. He tries to find escape in the pleasures of Tokyo's nightlife, but after one night realizes this is not the answer.
Worth noticing in the night club scene is Watanabe's theme song, which he sings to the horror of those watching him. The song is a ballad encouraging young women to find love. In the Japan of the 1950s, the post-war reality of significantly fewer eligible men sometimes required young women who hoped for families to accept men Watanabe's age (or older) as spouses.( Wiki)
After realizing he has gastric cancer, giving him less than a year to live, Watanabe attempts to come to terms with his impending death. He tries to find escape in the pleasures of Tokyo's nightlife, but after one night realizes this is not the answer.
Worth noticing in the night club scene is Watanabe's theme song, which he sings to the horror of those watching him. The song is a ballad encouraging young women to find love. In the Japan of the 1950s, the post-war reality of significantly fewer eligible men sometimes required young women who hoped for families to accept men Watanabe's age (or older) as spouses.( Wiki)
