Ikiru

Ikiru is a 1952 film about the struggles of a dying Tokyo bureaucrat and his final quest for life's meaning. The title Ikiru translates to "to live" in English.

I can't afford to hate anyone. I don't have that kind of time.

Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Written by Shinobu Hashimoto, Akira Kurosawa, and Hideo Oguni.

A big story of a little man which will grip your soul...

Kanji Watanabe

• I have less than a year to live. When I found that out... somehow I was drawn to you. Once when I was a child, I almost drowned. It's just like that feeling. Darkness everywhere, and nothing for me to hold onto, no matter how hard I try. There's just you.
• 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...
• I can't afford to hate anyone. I don't have that kind of time.
• Dying is very difficult.
• I just can't die — I don't know what I've been living for all these years. This expensive saki is a protest against my life up to now.

Toyo Odagiri

• [telling a joke] :"You've never had a day off, have you?"
  "No."
  "Why? Are you indispensable?"
  "No. I don't want them to find out they can do without me."

Novelist

• That's not art. A striptease isn't art. It's too direct. It's more direct than art. That woman's body up there? It's a big juicy steak. It's a glass of gin. It's a hormone extract. Streptomycin. Uranium!
• How tragic that man can never realize how beautiful life is until he is face to face with death.

Dialogue

Toyo: What help am I?

Kanji: You — just to look at you makes me feel better. It warms this — this mummy's heart of mine. And you're so kind to me. No; that's not it. You're so young, so healthy. No; that's not it either... You're so full of life. And me... I'm jealous of that. If I could be like you for just one day before I died. I won't be able to die unless I can do that. I want to do something. Only you can show me. I don't know what to do. I don't know how. Maybe you don't know either, but, please... if you can... show me how to be like you!

Cast

• Takashi Shimura - Kanji Watanabe
• Shinichi Himori - Kimura
• Haruo Tanaka - Sakai
• Minoru Chiaki - Noguchi
• Bokuzen Hidari - Ohara
• Miki Odagiri - Toyo Odagiri, employee
• Kamatari Fujiwara - Sub-Section Chief Ono

See also

• Ran (film)
• Rashomon (film)
• Seven Samurai
• Akira Kurosawa

External links

• Ikiru quotes at the Internet Movie Database