Ikiru

Ikiru is a 1952 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa, produced by Toho, starring Takashi Shimura. Kanji Watanabe has spent thirty years stamping documents in the same municipal office when he is found to have stomach cancer and told he has months left. After a period of drinking and aimless wandering he settles on one concrete task: turning a waterlogged patch of ground into a children's playground, which means working his way repeatedly through the departments that keep passing it along. The second half moves forward to his wake, where his colleagues drink and argue over how much he actually achieved, and the intervening events are filled in by flashback. The scene in which he sits on a swing in falling snow, singing quietly, is the passage most often cited.

Mainland China

生之欲

Hong Kong

留芳頌

Taiwan

生之慾

English

Ikiru

Original

生きる

• Takashi Shimura