The Bad Sleep Well

Infobox Film
name = The Bad Sleep Well


image_size =
caption = Original Japanese poster
director = Akira Kurosawa
producer = Akira Kurosawa
Tomoyuki Tanaka
writer =
narrator =
starring = Toshirō Mifune
music = Masaru Satō
cinematography = Yuzuru Aizawa
editing = Akira Kurosawa
distributor = Toho
released = September 19, 1960
runtime = 151 minutes
country = Japan
language = Japanese
budget =
gross =
preceded_by =
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amg_id = 1:3750
imdb_id = 0054460nihongo|"The Bad Sleep Well"|悪い奴ほどよく眠る|"Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru" is a 1960 film directed by the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. It was the first film to be produced under Kurosawa's own independent production company.

The film stars Toshirō Mifune as a young man who gets a prominent position in a corrupt postwar Japanese company in order to expose the men responsible for his father's death. It is Kurosawa's unofficial "Hamlet", reportedly the director's favourite Shakespeare play. It also doubles as a critique of corporate corruption.

ynopsis

Koichi Nishi (Toshirō Mifune) wants revenge for his father's death. Nishi is a complex man, playing the troubled Hamletesque character, who lets his father's past destroy his own future. Nishi is the easiest character to draw parallels with Shakespeare's play. Nishi seeks to avenge the unnatural death of his father. Maysayuki Mori's performance as the evil Iwabuchi resembles Claudius. The only other clearly corresponding character between Kurosawa's "The Bad Sleep Well" and "Hamlet" is Horatio with Nishi's accomplice. Nevertheless, the underlying themes of circumstance, revenge, and justice, connect the film and play.

External links

* [http://www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=319&eid=460&section=essay Criterion Collection essay by Chuck Stephens]
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* " [http://www.jmdb.ne.jp/1960/cj004290.htm The Bad Sleep Well] " ja icon at the Japanese Movie Database