Though I appreciate Hiroshi Inagaki’s mid-fifties Musashi Miyamoto samurai trilogy featuring the great Toshiro Mifune, I don’t rank the films among my favorite Japanese films of the era. Despite the success and influence of the films I guess I find them just a little too staid and conventional, particularly compared to the more visually inventive samurai films that would follow. In fact the first film of the series was mainstream enough to land a best foreign film Oscar (like another contemporary straight forward period film in a classical style, Kinugasa’s Gate of Hell). My interest was peaked though when TCM ran The Rickshaw Man, another Inagaki/Mifune collaboration (they made over 15 films together). The Rickshaw Man is a non-samuari film,…

A rickshaw driver becomes a surrogate father to the child of a recently widowed woman. Hiroshi Inagaki gets something out of Toshiro Mifune that I never thought I'd see: a tender, warm, loving performance. Not that I doubt Mifune's range as an actor, but he always seems to operate with a scowl. Mifune is excellent opposite the kid in this movie. It reminded me of the scenes (albeit, not featuring Mifune) in "Seven Samurai" involving the village children. Mifune is also excellent opposite Hideko Takamine who plays the single mother. Takamine's soft features and timid performance highlight her abilities to performance peerlessly in silence.

And this is a big departure from my other exposure to Inagaki's work: the Samurai trilogy.…

A warm and often funny dramatic pitch for cultural customs over riding human desire for rudimentary connections. Toshirō Mifune is Matsugoro the Rickshaw Man. A simple man who befriends the boy of widow. He’s considerate even in the bluntness of brawn when conflict arises. And though he is a man of habit it doesn’t mean he suffers from a lack of charm. Impressing friends playing the taiko drum and winning a foot race to entertain. Slowly he falls for the widow and begins to lay his own life desires down for the boy. Spending all his spare time looking for opportunities to see her and the boy. Occasionally you get the sense she’d like to return the feeling but maybe…

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An Unregrettable Life

Winner of the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival in 1958, Hiroshi Inagaki's The Rickshaw Man is indeed a remake of the same film Inagaki himself directed in 1943, which had been censored significantly. Thereby the 1958 version, adapted from the novel by Shunsaku Iwashita, is the ideal final version Inagaki intended. Toshiro Mifune starred as the illiterate, impetuous larger-than-life rickshaw man Matsugoro, nicknamed Muhomatsu, who befriends with the young feeble boy Toshio (Kaoru Matsumoto, subsequently played by Kenji Kasahara in adolescence) and his parents. But shortly, Toshio's father Capt. Kotaro (Hiroshi Akutagawa) passes away, leaving his wife Yoshiko (Hideko Takamine) as a widow. The compassionate Matsugoro soon takes up the role as…

Matsugoro (Toshiro Mifune) is an uneducated rickshaw driver in turn-of-the-century Japan. He’s brash and impulsive, but endears himself to the community by the strength of his personality. One day, he rushes an injured boy named Toshio (Kaoru Matsumoto, later Kenji Kashahara) to the doctor. The grateful parents — the affable military Captain Yoshioka (Hiroshi Akutagawa) and his lovely wife Yoshiko (Hideko Takamine) – invite Matsu to dinner and the three become friends. But the father falls ill and passes away. Matsu becomes a surrogate father to the mild young Toshio, teaching him to be a man at his mother’s request. Matsu revels in the job, but carries a torch for the beautiful widow, while the class differences keep them apart.…

Este es el Inagaki que buscaba, vaya. Emocional, sacando lo mejor de Mifune, de maravillosa dirección y excelente fotografía, narrativamente bien medido y haciendo merecidas sus escenas más potentes. No solo es una mejora sustancial respecto a su versión original (sin duda, Mifune es la mejor elección posible), sino que logra extraer la emoción necesaria de su sensibilidad visual y narrativa. Si bien algunos momentos no brillan con tanta fuerza (ese montaje en negativo es algo mejorable), el producto final es muy redondo. Pocas veces se ha visto a un director de jidaigeki realizando de forma tan certera una obra de costumbrismo japonés. Matsu es un personaje tremendamente simpático y siempre tierno; su conexión con el espectador es orgánica y…

'O Homem do Riquixá', de Hiroshi Inagaki, é um belo e singelo filme que apela para os sentimentos do espectador ao apresentar um personagem típico, de origem pobre e coração enorme. Gentil, generoso, sincero, companheiro, engraçado... o personagem do condutor de riquixá, interpretado pelo genial Toshiro Mifune, reúne todas as virtudes admiráveis para um ser humano, e com muita alegria passa a ajudar uma viúva a criar seu filho pequeno, sempre disposto a suprir as necessidades dos dois. O único "problema", e que se estabelece como limite insuperável é a diferença de classes sociais entre esse homem e a família de um ex-militar, onde naturalmente, o sentimento de amor que se desenvolve passa a ser um peso pouco suportável para…

Este es el Inagaki que buscaba, vaya. Emocional, sacando lo mejor de Mifune, de maravillosa dirección y excelente fotografía, narrativamente bien medido y haciendo merecidas sus escenas más potentes. No solo es una mejora sustancial respecto a su versión original (sin duda, Mifune es la mejor elección posible), sino que logra extraer la emoción necesaria de su sensibilidad visual y narrativa. Si bien algunos momentos no brillan con tanta fuerza (ese montaje en negativo es algo mejorable), el producto final es muy redondo. Pocas veces se ha visto a un director de jidaigeki realizando de forma tan certera una obra de costumbrismo japonés. Matsu es un personaje tremendamente simpático y siempre tierno; su conexión con el espectador es orgánica y…