Kurosawa nearing his twilight. It's not great, and it's definitely got it's own issues but it still has enough classic moments to make it memorable and enjoyable to fans.

You know what, this isn't so bad.

Kurosawa returns to the nuclear stigma theme, and it's safe to say he's tackled the concept in more effective ways. Rhapsody in August has all the production value and tone of an after school special with really drab presentation and lame acting, and it often lays out its ideas too plainly. Kurosawa sure liked biding his time later on in his career, and this is one of those occasions where he could've done a lot of cutting.

Clearly lesser Kurosawa but with plenty of emotionally arresting moments to rise above what most filmmakers can accomplish.

67.250

Certainly not the best release Kurosawa's but good enough to import dramatic moments in the film that deals with the History....

Boring as hell, plus a lot of maundering about Japan getting nuked when it's historical fact that that deed actually *saved* all manner of lives that would have been taken by a U.S. invasion of the Japanese mainland. A real wet fart from Kurosawa

In Dreams, Kurosawa deals clumsily with the physical effects of the atomic bomb. Here, he deals clumsily with the emotional and geopolitical effects. The children did not seem realistic. I just didn't care much about what was going on. The characters were pretty one-dimensional, the messages were heavy-handed and the symbolism too obvious. There were some really nice moments, though, and I found myself moved once or twice.

A lesser known Kurosawa, buried deep beneath all the Rans and the Rashomons, 'Rhapsody in August' is slow moving most of the way, but interspersed with some interesting moments and an insight into the Japanese-American relationship based on the touchy subject of America's 1945 bombing of Nagasaki.