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Oct 23, 2015rswcove rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
Good Gried, I can't get three people who have watched this film to agree on what it is trying to say. Weirdly, everyone I know who has seen it does agree that it is a great film. And the confusion over theme is obviously intentional on Kurosawa's part, and may itself be the theme. This movie is hypnotic, a mystery that is better for it's central questions never being answered. This film is the parent to 'The Usual Suspects', 'Fight Club', 'Sucker Punch', 'Momento', and every other unreliable narrator tale told since. I've read the story it was based on, and while interesting, this is a case where the film has elevated the material well beyond what the literature originally achieved. This is a masterpiece worthy of the term.