I chose to watch this a second time when I was planning to vindictively subject my film club to a long sparse film as punishment for not liking my last selection. Not that I don't love this film, it's just that I thought it would play poorly in the galleries. It was actually quite popular.

This was one of the first Kurosawa's I'd seen 10 years ago when I first saw it and I was totally blown away. On re-viewing having seen a lot of his work I'm all the more impressed. His commitment to his films, and this one in particular is legendary and the attention to detail comes through in every aspect, except, perhaps, the wigs.