User Reviews

Frequently neglected in comparison with his earlier works, this 1950 film provides a naturalistic look at conditions in post-war

Japan and hits on themes that seem oddly contemporary: the price of celebrity and the debate over the responsibility of a free

press

All the right characters are here: a pop star, a prominent artist, a seedy attorney, an unscrupulous gossip magazine publisher and the obligatory angelic daughter with tuberculosis! ItÕs even topped off with a climactic courtroom scene.

While Toshiro Mifune is the marquee name,Takashi Shimura, as the conflicted attorney Hiruta, is the star of this moral melodrama. His performance may seem excessive to some but he gets the great self condemning line that resonates today, ÒA bad lawyer is the worst scum.Ó

One trivia note: While Mifune and Shimura are among the better known members of KurosawaÕs stable, Scandal marks the debut of another familiar face, Bokuzen Hidari, as a drunk in a hostess bar belting out Auld Lang Syne

Akira Kurosawa has now become one of my favourite directors. Even in some of his weaker films like Dreams and Rhapsody in August there is much to like. All his films are beautifully made and directed, with complex and humanistic characters and themes, fine music and great acting. Scandal is not one of my favourites from Kurosawa like Seven Samurai, Ran, Hidden Fortress, Ikiru and Yojimbo, I did find some scenes like the Auld Lang Syne bar scene on the melodramatic side and I found Toshiro Mifune's performance here to be the least interesting of his I've seen so far and his character somewhat dissuasive. That is not to say at all that Mifune is bad, he is actually very good with his usual brooding persona, just that he has done characters that were more human and interesting. Besides while I have found Mifune to have stolen the films he's in before, he's outclassed by a brilliant Takashi Shimura, and Shirley Yamaguchi and Yoko Katsuragi are just as natural. Other than Shimura, Yamaguchi and Katsuragi, Scandal is made and directed with delicate skill, and the story, with quite a daring and personal subject matter, is always intense and engaging. The script is just as naturalistic and never stilted, the characters on the whole are well done especially Shimura's lawyer, the courtroom scene is compellingly played and the music while not one of the best ever scores for Kurosawa's films is fitting. All in all, not one of the master of Japanese cinema's best but still a film of interest. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Akiro Kurosawa's "Scandal" was released in 1950, the same year than "Rashomon" which makes its relative lack of fame understandable albeit unfair, because in its own modest way, "Scandal" marks a transition between Kurosawa's neo-realistic movies such as "Stray Dog" and "Drunken Angel" and international recognition. You can even feel some announcing signs of the revolution named "Rashomon"... from the very first scene.

Ichioro Aoye is painting in the mountains, watched by three rustic and colorful mountaineers who can't understand why the mount he's painting is red. Because it's moving, says Aoye. The idea that painting couldn't represent reality baffles them, foreshadowing the conflict to come. Then occurs a strange meeting with a renowned singer Miyako Sajio, played by Shirley Yamagushi. She's lost, the bus will be late, Aoye offers her a ride to the hotel on his motorbike. Later, two paparazzi from tabloid magazine "Amour" take a picture of Sajio and Aoye in a balcony.

And so begins the scandal.

At first, the film has a strange Kazanian feel reminding his films about the power of media, in one side, the offended righteous couple and opposing them, the sleazy paparazzi owner with a grin, invoking freedom of press in a media joust presented like a ping-pong montage of interviews (instead of the usual spinning headlines). There's something oddly American in this modern Japan, that went as far as adopting the standards of America such as Santa Claus, "Silent Night" and even "Auld Lang Syne". It's not much the presence of America than the loss of values and poetry Kurosawa denounces. There's something wrong indeed when people can be fooled by a static photograph but not see the poetry in a painting.

The still photo moved more than Aoie's vision of the mountain.

It's that context of twisted and distorted reality that made Japan lose its boundaries and if you look at it carefully, this is the very basis of "Rashomon", the idea that what you see, what you take for granted might only be a matter of perspective. Applying this logic to the picture, and knowing for a fact the article is a bunch of lies made to sell paper, we can't help but feel from our perspective that there's some genuine guilt within the couple, they might have fallen in love after all. It's then a matter of honor, the point is to be responsible for what you show and whether you're criticized for the way you do it is irrelevant if the intent is sincere.

Kurosawa was more celebrated outside Japan maybe because he was closer to Aioe painting his mountain, never a paparazzi forging the truth, and boy, did his pictured shake the world.

And when the media circus calms down, a down-on-his-luck lawyer named Hiruta, played by Takashi Shimura, offers his help. Aioe is perplexed at first and it's only after he meets Hiruta's young tuberculous daughter Masako (Yôko Katsuragi) terminally ill, that he lets Hiruta defend him. Masako is a central character as she represents the morality, innocence and purity being lost in post-WW2 Japan, a delicate and soulful girl who sees no bad without ignoring its existence and paradoxically, she's also the trigger of her father's moral downfall as he takes bribes from the adverse party to slow the trial, needing money to cure them.

So just when we think we're having a courtroom drama, Kurosawa surprises his own audience. The narrative loses focus on the trial and turns into a character study of guilt and redemption through he overly pathetic Hiruta. Sometimes truly heartbreaking, sometimes grotesque with his constant snorting and self-loathing (he was inspired by a man Kurosawa used to encounter in a bar), sometimes even annoying with his sorry look and bent posture, it's a first taste of "Ikiru" that kind of drag down during ten minutes before the film takes its breath back.

The focus on Hiruta proves that Kurosawa doesn't care for ideas than people, it's one thing to comment on Japan's declining values but to show it through a personal tragedy is the real craft of the Master. After all, even in "Rashomon", the story would have been pointless if it wasn't for that emotional finale with the two men.

So honor, life and death have been recurring themes in all Kurosawa's filmography and the evolution and redemption of Hiruta is the soul of the film, the internal battle between principles and money. The film carries some noir undertones with journalists posing like verbal gangsters but ultimately, the film is about the way people should conduct themselves, it's about men doing their job with commitment and responsibility. "Drunken Angel" had a doctor who cared for an ill man though he was a criminal, "Stray Dog" was about a cop who lost a gun and feared the bullets would make collateral victims, "Scandal" has singers, painters, professionals who, whether lawyers or journalist, have a responsibility to face (notice that even the bad guy's lawyer is more competent and ethical than his opponent).

That responsibility is materialized in Kurosawa's camera, one picture can destroy people's lives, but in another scene, Hiruta sees the picture of his daughter before taking a bribe and can't even look straight at her. What you see can also warn you about what you are and Kurosawa painted his own truth with the empathy of a true humanist. Another example is when Hiruta comes late at home, he sees Sajio singing a Xmas song and she's framed by the door as a screen vignette within the shot, as if that moment was encapsulating his own personal alienation.

So "Scandal" is about what people perceive and how they're perceived in return, and in this overlapping of realities, somewhere the truth exists and tending to it is a moral responsibility and art is the perfect accessory as long as it's used sincerely. Indeed a fine precursor to "Rashomon", and to use a hackneyed formula, an underrated little gem.

This film is about an artist named Ichiro Aoye (the great Toshiro Mifune) who by chance meets up with a famous singer Miyako Saijo (the very pretty Shirley Yamaguchi) while he is on a mountain painting. He drives her on his motorcycle to town and they happen to be staying in separate rooms at the same inn. A picture of them together, though not in any way with each other, is taken and causes a tabloid sensation. Ichiro decides to sue for libel and a very flawed lawyer (the equally great Takashi Shimura) takes the case. This film was done in 1949, yet it somehow remains relevant. Substitute Ichiro and Miyako with any celebrities you like and you'll get the idea. Mr. Shimura's character is so deeply explored you understand the pain, but may not like the man. Mr. Mifune is his usual solid self in this role and the film says a lot about privacy, hurt, pain and possibly even evil and redemption. Highly recommended.

Kurosawa's Scandal is thus far my least favorite of all of his films. It tells the most kindergarten of yarns: Two celebrities accidentally meet during a holiday staying at the same hotel. In an easily misunderstood situation each other, tabloid photographers seek revenge on them for rejecting interviews by taking a picture of them and fabricating a love story about them. There is a scandal, and a lawsuit eventually battles the paparazzi. Despite Kurosawa's message pertaining to the post-war Americanization of Japan in terms of the media, could a single pop culture magazine dominate the entire media the way it's depicted to in the story?

The narrative is so clearcut and unsurprising with its message-obsessed subject, the good guys are practically perfect with complete humility and no character flaws and the bad guys are cocky jerks with no redeemable values.

It's not a terrible film, however. It is, after all, directed by Akira Kurosawa who, aside from showcasing an obvious scenario about the shrewdly dishonest media, explores the Japanese cultural perception of weakness. Weakness is something intolerable in Japanese culture, yet good enough people can understand a naturally weak person. Weakness is an organic part of someone. It comes from sensitivity, feelings of inferiority, harsh luck, all of which the character of the lawyer has, and as hard as it is for the surrounding characters to do, they understand it when he gives into weakness.

I prefer the last half of the movie by a landslide because it becomes more about the lawyer wrestling with his own guilt. It's a story that would never be found in an American film because of the cultural differences and how bound to accords the Japanese feel.

This is my favourite Kurosawa film. The director was reported to have been furious at the state of media freedom under the post-WWII US Occupation, and he vents his spleen on it here. The film is a passionate condemnation of gutter press and appears to be partly based on the director's own experiences.

I have to stop myself from the overuse of superlatives when describing this film. The acting is simply some of the best I've seen in any movie. Mifune does his usual good job as the brooding and very serious motorbike-riding painter but, for once, even the great Mifune is outclassed by several other actors.

Yoshiko Yamaguchi shines as the doe-eyed singer, whom a scandal magazine tries to frame as the painter's lover.

Despite not appearing until a third of the way through the film, Takashi Shimura steals every scene from Mifune. He is in top form as the weird and corrupted lawyer, and is a delight to watch.

But even Shimura is outclassed by the young Yoko Katsuragi, playing his daughter, who despite dying of TB is cheerful and a joy to all around her.

Nor does the support cast let them down. A number of great character actors, led by the man who plays the sleazy editor, complete the picture nicely.

I unreservedly recommend this film as a must-see for any film lover.

The new Eclipse set Postwar Kurosawa might be more accurately titled Lesser Kurosawa. I mean, Kurosawa didn't make any pre-war movies, and he only made two or three during the war. Scandal is most famous for being released the same year as Rashomon and being infinitely inferior. It's definitely one of the director's more forgettable films. In fact, I'd probably say it's my personal least favorite so far (there are three more in this set that I haven't yet seen). But it's not that bad. Pretty good, really. Toshiro Mifune plays a pipe smoking, motorcycle riding painter who gets photographed by paparazzi hanging out with a famous singer (Yoshiko "Shirley" Yamaguchi, who also starred in Sam Fuller's House of Bamboo). A tabloid spins the story out of control, so Mifune decides to sue. He hires pathetic failure Takashi Shimura to be his lawyer, mostly because he feels sorry for him and his daughter, who has tuberculosis. But being a weak man, Shimura is susceptible to temptations from the other side of the lawsuit. There are a few very good scenes, especially the one in the bar where Shimura has a breakdown and gets the whole place to join him in a Japanese version of Auld Lang Syne. The courtroom drama is one of my least favorite genres, and while this film mostly takes place outside of that setting, the scenes that do take place there are poor. The film includes one of my most hated clichés, that of the courtroom audience bursting into laughter and/or applause during the testimonies. The final twist is lame, too. Let's just say checks are always a bad idea when you're attempting to bribe someone.

This Kurasawa film, starring the ubiquitous Toshiro Mifune is exactly what most film fans do NOT expect. This is NOT a samurai film and there is no killing and it was set in the present-day. Unfortunately, because of these factors it is seldom shown on TV and has been largely ignored by Kurasawa buffs. This is a real shame because I think it's one of his best--due to wonderful writing and characterizations.

The story begins with Mifune on vacation. He's in the mountains painting for relaxation when he accidentally meets up with a famous female celebrity. He drives her back to the inn they are both staying at and the next day they happen to meet again and share breakfast. Nothing illicit--just two nice people sharing time together. However, unknown to them, they are seen and photographed by sleazy tabloid writers who try to create scandal.

The star is't terribly bothered by the mess but Mifune sees this as a great dishonor and he MUST gain satisfaction from the rag. They refuse to relent and so Mifune seeks out legal representation to sue.

This is only the first third of the movie. The alcoholic lawyer and his handicapped daughter make up a powerful and importance presence in the movie. The ending is NOT TO BE MISSED--I couldn't have wanted a better human drama or better acting. Wonderful and true throughout.

This premiered in Japan only four months before "Rashômon" (1950), a film that marked a turn of events for Kurosawa, who, a year later in 1951, would find himself picking up the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival, his name henceforth on everyone's lips.

This marks an end of an era, then. It does pair up very well with "Yoidore tenshi" (1948) and "Nora inu" (1949), its immediate predecessors, but also with "Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru" (1960). All of these are scintillating depictions of urban Japan, but they all mark an acute sense of drama on the personal level: these are "small" films when compared to "Shichinin no samurai" (1954) and "Ran" (1985), for example, but Kurosawa, in these films, shows his strengths, and the great energetic intimacy that is prevalent in "Samurai", for example, quite possibly stems from the experience of making a film like this.

I have no idea why this is often overlooked as mere "early Kurosawa", as if that would somehow de-note a lesser film. His later masterpieces are great films, but the early films of his are amongst the most rewarding I know of. What's more, this film shares a great deal with "Rashômon" (1950) in meditating on truth and how that is and can be depicted on screen in the narrative. A brilliant film in all respects, and Mifune is as amazing as ever.

Scandal reveals an Akira Kurosawa who was passionate about a topic and wanted to reveal it through his view of "fiction", which was closer to reality than some might have realized. Kurosawa was in the midst of a scandal before making the picture, linked to an actress while also married and with a few kids at home. It was a smear tactic that he hated, and decided to put all of his anger into a "message" movie where a 'yellow' journalist's rag (titled, amusingly, Amour which means love), and how a painter (Mifune) and a singer (Yamaguchi) get caught in the cross-hairs of a scandal via out-of-context picture of the two of them. Kurosawa sets up a situation that could potentially become hazardous territory: no matter how much he can use cinematic tricks out of journalism dramas, with the fast flashes of newspapers and the dynamic editing with each side delivering their sides of the situation to the press, it could potentially become preachy as the Amour editor is shown as truly corrupt and evil with his power as a cheap exploitation peddler.

But enter in Takashi Shimura's character and things seem to even out, wonderfully in fact, as he plays a small-time and weak-willed lawyer with a weak-in-body-not-in-spirit daughter who has TB. He becomes more of the emotional lynch-pin of the film than anyone else, as he has a true crisis of conscience, leaving him with a facial expression throughout like the one Shimura also had for those scenes wandering around the bars in Ikiru. He took bad money, a bribe, and he is not the sort who can live with it easily. He drinks, he rants how much of a scoundrel he is, and then even tries to push it down by crying for the stars, and (a great scene) where he sings "auld lang sign" on Christmas night with everyone in a restaurant. In a sense, Shimura is Kurosawa's wild card, a part of his film that works in every scene (Shimura, aside from Mifune, was Kurosawa's most crucial acting collaborator), undercutting certain moments just with the look on his face, the sad glare in his eyes with the total burden of everything he's throwing to the "devil".

When Kurosawa is at his strongest with Scandal, he crafts a view of reality that is just a touch surreal, a touch into what should be closed-and-shut, and through his form of entertainment (including his usual tricks of editing wipes and sublime compositions), which is incendiary while not really being as preachy as one might think. If anything, like La Dolce Vita, Kurosawa is prophetic with his view of tabloid journalism, with the only difference being reaction: whereas today a "scandal" of a photo with a celebrity in a picture with another celebrity as if in a relationship is brushed off as just gossip, Kurosawa's view is more pessimistic. There can't be a manner of exploitation with people's lives such as this. The only error Kurosawa then makes with his execution of the material comes in the subplot of sorts with the lawyer's daughter- here it does become sappy, like a Tiny Tim type of character who's meant to have a glow around her as a pure soul. Not a bad idea, but it's not pulled off with the same quality of the rest of the film.

Greetings fellow Kurosawa enthusiasts. I presume most of you, just as I, have arrived here as part of your journey through the career of one of cinema's prodigal sons. It has been quite a ride, has it not? Anywho, after traversing undeniable landmarks, we are now reaching out. Unfortunately, Scandal is not the under-appreciated gem we were hoping to snag. Rather, it seems we were just rooting around the bottom of the Kurosawa barrel. The master's trademarks are present, but this is Kurosawa at his worst, mired in a sea of squishy sentimentality. Scandal is rendered pedestrian by a slew of superior contemporaries, and for Kurosawa, this is a disappointment.

Scandal is a critique of yellow journalism in post war Japan. Our protagonist Ichiro Aoye, played by legend Toshiro Mifune, is a painter wrongly accused of engaging in an affair with popular singer Miyako Saijo (Yamaguchi). The singers role is largely a throw away part, but Mifune is enjoyable as always. A motor cycle riding rebel who revels in his unabashed abrasiveness, this was a part conceived and reserved for exactly one man. The exaggerated movement, furious scratching, I would not cite this as one of his best performances, but it at least highlights why Kurosawa loved this man. Aoye, who is dead set on extracting some kind of atonement from the libelous rag, forms a partnership with lawyer Otokichi Hiruta (Takashi Shimura). This failure would normally be kicked to the curb, but Aoye is won over by the lawyers crippled daughter (Katsuragi). What a character. Shimura has proved nobility and grace in masterpieces, but his bug-eye queerness here is unique. Hiruta's daughter, however, is a recycled narrative disaster. This Tiny Tim want makes Scandal a mawkish joke. Aoye becomes embarrassingly incompetent and Hiruta blandly pathetic. Both superior characters are brought down by this saccharine mistake. I found the ending unpredictable simply because I could not believe that Kurosawa would turn to such clichés.

Sigh. I really do want to like this movie more. Laudable acting, and Kurosawa's attributes mostly carry the wishy-washy plot. The blocking is sublime. Not of the usual large group shots, just geometric arrangements of trios, quartets. Veterans will also note the movement and editing we have grown to love. However, this lesson in cinematic style is insufficient. I can name a slew of 50's Hollywood movies based on yellow journalism that make Scandal look greenhorn. The courtroom scenes in the last act are also derivative. It would be disingenuous to recommend this movie with so many similar alternatives. If Hollywood is not to your taste look to Masaki Kobayashi. That director was a master of scathing commentary. I think anything more than liking Scandal is settling. Scandal is not a waste of time for those finishing the complete Kurosawa filmography, but that is a sad endorsement.

It is wonderful to see how a skilled director like Akira Kurosawa can create a masterwork from mundane material. This one is a simple court case over a "Scandal" involving Toshiro Mifune and a famous singer. A sandal sheet magazine publishes a photo claiming them as lovers ... they are not, and sue the magazine. The resulting court trial is the bulk of the film. Their sleazy lawyer played by Takashai Shimura is a delightful, complicated character. Completely absorbing.

The reverse of Drunken Angel where Toshiro Mifune walked in and stole Takashi Shimura's movie, Shimura walks in and steals Mifune's movie in Scandal. Inspired by a real life event dealing with a Japanese singer and the aggressively predatory press, Akira Kurosawa wrote a story that starts out as a look at the amoral efforts of the press to sell copies of their magazine and becomes a look at the morality of a weak lawyer in a difficult situation. Much like the earlier film, I feel like the split keeps the film from attaining greatness, but the combination of cinematic elements under Kurosawa's control are just so good that the film remains effective.

The painter Ichiro Aoe (Mifune) is in the southern part of rural Japan painting a mountain, surrounded by three local men who watch him work, when the singer Miyako Saijo (Yoshiko Yamaguchi) walks by, asking for directions to the next town. Aoe ends up giving her a ride on his motorcycle, and two photographers for the magazine Amour, who had been tailing her on a bus, see the pair together and assume that they are a romantic couple. Getting a picture of them on the balcony of her room for the five minutes they spent together, they take it back to their publisher Asai (Shinichi Himori) who runs with it, forcing the head writer to make up an article about their romance, and prints it. Aoe finds out when he gets back to Tokyo and the magazine has sold like hotcakes. Arriving at the Amour offices, we get a scene to demonstrate Mifune's status as a very good actor. He walks in calmly, takes a copy from a desk, reads intently for a minute while the publisher hovers over him, slowly becoming more confident that Aoe will simply accept the situation, and then Aoe punches him in the face and leaves. It's a strangely compelling moment.

Aoe, after speaking with his model Sumie (Noriko Sengoku), decides to sue Amour for defamation, even after he speaks with Saijo who supports him but won't join the suit. At his studio arrives the attorney Hiruta (Shimura), begging to take the job of representing Aoe in the suit. These early scenes with Hiruta are surprisingly entertaining as Shimura delivers a wonderfully comic physical performance while he navigates his boots and socks (after having stepped in some open sewage on his way there), explaining his theory on the law to the slightly flabbergasted Aoe and Sumie. The way he bends over, carries his socks, and just keeps going reminded me of Giulietta Masina's performance in Nights of Cabiria. It's a very effective way to introduce a character and endear an audience to him at the same time, and that endearing outlook is key to the rest of the film.

Hiruta is not a particularly strong man. Aoe decides to hire him as his attorney in the case because he visits Hiruta's home and discovers his teenage daughter Masako (Yoko Katsugari) who is bedridden with tuberculosis and has the most uplifting opinion of her father. His office is a shack on the roof of a four-story building with a central picture of Masako, and Aoe sees Hiruta as a good man. Hiruta jumps into the work with gusto, but one meeting with Asai and Hiruta breaks him. Asai drops the name of the most prominent lawyer in the city, Kataoka (Sugisaku Aoyama), implying that he represents the magazine, and Hiruta suddenly sees the situation as hopeless. He takes a bribe to throw the case, and he becomes consumed by his own guilt.

There's a wonderful sequence set on Christmas night where Aoe and Saijo go to Hiruta's house and sing Christmas carols (in Japanese) to Masako. It's a tender moment undercut by Hiruta's inability to get into it because he knows he has a 100,000 yen check in his pocket. He and Aoe go out to a bar that evening, and while they get drunk a man stands up and declares that with only one week left to go in 1949, he is making a promise to himself to make 1950 better. Hiruta joins him with the promise, calling himself a worm before Aoe drags him back home.

The trial begins, and Hiruta obviously and intentionally throws the case. His opening statement is incoherent. He fails to call the three men who watched Aoe paint at the beginning of the film as witnesses. When called out for his procedural lapses by the opposing lawyer (Kataoka whom Asai had managed to hire in a panic), Hiruta just climbs into himself, curling up into a ball while remaining seated. It's pathetic, and Aoe knows what Hiruta is doing. He's just confident that deep down Hiruta is a good man and will do the right thing, but it takes the death of Masako to shake him out. The resolution is the sort of movie trial ending where I would assume everything would just dissolve into a mistrial and Hiruta getting disbarred for life, but because it's a movie that simplifies everything into a kind of morality tale, it mostly works.

If this were Hiruta's story from the beginning and the movie ended on a more believable note, bridging the gap between morality tale and hard-edged look at tabloid culture, I think this could have been great. The focus on Aoe in the beginning and the unbelievable ending undermine the film as a whole, I think. Still, it's an effective morality tale that gets to its subject in time. It's got its heart in the right place and a pair of very nice central performances. It may not be one of Kurosawa's great films, but it's a quality addition to his filmography.

This is one of my favorite Kurosawa films--right up there with IKIRU and RAN. Considering SCANDAL was made in 1949, I think it's interesting that Kurosawa was already showing how Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky influenced him. The corrupted lawyer's dilemma whether he should side with the prosecutors or defendants is something straight out of HAMLET. And like Hamlet, he doesn't make his decision until the very end. The painter who tried to find justice in a corrupt society reminded me of Raskolnikov in Dostoyevsky's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. Although the painter didn't commit a crime, he was still being tried for one and treated like a criminal. You begin to see how his anger to a corrupt society is rooted to his psychological makeup of the "superman" complex--or the little man standing up to the big boys. After SCANDAL, Kurosawa made a number of films that show how he was influenced by Dostoyevsky and Shakespeare: THE IDIOT (Dostyovesky), IKIRU (Dostoyevsky), THRONE OF BLOOD (Shakespeare), RAN (Shakespeare), etc. I highly recommend SCANDAL.

A gossip magazine spreads rumours of a relationship between two high society people so a down and out lawyer approaches them to combat the press villains. A critical social view of the Japanese culture that became too Americanized after the war.

Being a perfectly consistent and downright expressive man, Akira Kurosawa knew how to approach every fresh topic, no matter how controversial. He had this innate ability that allowed him to transform, with unmistakable ease, each and every one of those topics into impressive and captivating motion pictures. Scandal (Shûbun) is his darkly satirical effort to unveil the gradual deterioration of the Japanese press industry. Through a somehow unsurprising and bitterly pretentious – yet informative and intense – drama Kurosawa attempted to criticize all the immoral actions of reporters in post-war Japan. For the sake of sensationalism, the private lives of not only celebrities, but even some of the lesser-known citizens, were suddenly deemed invaluable. It seemed as though to catch the attention of the readers is to forget about a human moral code. Writing a story, which might not even be true, was totally all right, and even hurting other people's feelings was on the agenda. Ironically so, all those wrongdoings remain unchanged up to this day in most places in the world.

Scandal proves to be a considerable visualization of a celebrity's worst nightmare. Coincidentally, a well-known beautiful singer Miyako Saijo (Shirley Yamaguchi) meets an aspiring painter Ichiro Aoye (Toshiro Mifune) while he's working on a new painting in the countryside. Moments later, Ichiro offers Miyako a lift on his bike, since they both stay at the same inn. Unfortunately, they are tracked down by a group of paparazzi looking for an exciting story to publish in their tabloid magazine Amour. One random picture and a cover story that insinuates an ongoing romance between the two artists change the pace of the film dramatically. In just a short period of time Ichiro and Miyako become the objects of interest of almost the whole nation (a silly exaggeration, though a efficacious one). To prove them all wrong, irritated Ichiro quickly decides to sue for damages, and in order to do so he hires a clumsy, welcoming, yet secretly perfidious lawyer Hiruta (Takashi Shimura). Though Hiruta convinces Ichiro that he shares his hatred towards the press and its shameful actions, he actually goes behind his client's back and decides to throw the trial, in order to get some money for his sick daughter Masako (Yoko Katsuragi). What's surprising is that even though Ichiro is aware of the position of his disloyal lawyer, he still believes that he will come to his senses and choose the right way. For the sake of sheer entertainment and for Kurosawa's own sense of fulfillment, Hiruta goes through an enlightening transformation and brings about the most satisfying twist in action.

Even though Mifune, with all his suave and charm, comes as the most prominent actor of the movie, it's really worth to mention Yoko Katsaguri's performance. Her character, though bound to bed through the whole movie, is the brightest star of the whole showcase. With her purity, kindness, and plausible sense of judgment she is the source of all-energy and immediately becomes, even in her fragile state, the guardian angel seeking a happy ending.

In the ever-changing media reality people are only looking out for themselves, and that is, in the subtlest sense, a cause of the gradual downfall of humanity as such. People tend to care about material things in the first place; they need to suppress their urges through the misfortune of others. And press – with all its power and attention – creates this deeply superficial world, as we now know it. Scandal, the title of this picture, corresponds not only to the sensations that surround the fictitious love affair, but also to the behavior (though unnecessarily biased) of all the characters connected to the newspaper industry.

The most interesting thing about this film is its comparison to Rashomon. It was filmed less than a year before and it gave me the feeling that Kurosawa was testing the waters, so to speak, before tackling Rashomon. It deals with the same subject matter (the relativity of truth and self-perception) but all of the power, beauty and poetry of Rashomon are missing. Mifune as the sensitive artist is nice to look at but too subdued. Watch this movie and then watch Rashomon. He is unrecognizable! Shimura, who I usually like, is rather annoying as the tormented lawyer. How many times does he say "I'm a dog"? Of course, a minor Kurosawa is still better than most other films so Scandal does have some good moments. The courtroom scenes are very well done and the scenes between Mifune and his model are delightful!

No thank you Kurosawa, The most disappoint film by the late master. It is of course beautifully photographed, beautifully acted with a sterling cast. The problem is the story. Tabloid-style thugs take a misleading photo of two people, one famous, the other less so, but also well known. It sells a lot of smutty magazines. The male decides to sue and contracts with a shady, descrpit lawyer. There is a precious, sick little girl thrown in. Instead of being a story about the scandal and the offended couple, or even the smutty magazine, it is really about the drunken, terrible attorney, say 80 per cent of the story. There are japanese people buying Christmas trees and singing anglo Christmas carols, and this part of the story is just incomprehensible. It is a big part of this story. The famous woman singer sings like a western opera or broadway singer, singing anglo songs as well, which seems just strange, there is nothing Japanese in her nature or in her voice. 1950. What was going on here? Was it made this way to pass the censorship of US control? This would never be recognized as Kurosawa work if we did not know it already. I watched the entire movie only because he made it and at the end was severely disappointed.