I Live in Fear

Kurosawa followed up one of his greatest commercial and critical successes with a small movie about fears of nuclear weaponry that lost money at the box office where his star, Toshiro Mifune, played a 70-year-old man at 35. This is about as far from populist, humanist fare that Kurosawa was becoming known for. I think it has some niggling issues that hold it back from greatness, but this is a really mature character portrait of a man consumed by fear.

The immediate concern of the film is ...