The only way I can describe this movie is Sweet.It is such a lovely movie in its simplicity. There are no evil schemes and plots. No subplots within subplots with twist and suspense building. No massive production with a cast of thousands. No nasty characters that you hate. It is just a sweet simple story telling about an unemployed man (ronin) and his wife.This movie made me smile as especially the wives. The wife of the Samurai, Tayo, is incredibly sweet. Same with the wife of the lord. Both play the "character" of the Asian wife...quietly supportive while leading the man to understanding with words of wisdom.Great minimalistic acting. A Samurai Feel Good movie.

I have seen this two days after the exhilarating "Kill", by Okamoto. So ? They both feature a middle-aged ronin with a good heart and an even better sword, inns full of "the good people", poor but industrious, and rather mean and silly clansmen. And pensive wives or wives to be. But Kill is a stylish, funny, irrelevant film, with a wonderful comical Tatsuya Nakadai, whereas Ame agaru fails in almost everything it attempts. The actor playing the ronin has no body tension (all right, that's part of his technique, but it doesn't work on screen. The old master — incidentally played by dear Nakadai — could have taught him a few of his acting tricks.) and there is no chemistry between any of those actors. Shiro Mifune has his papa's voice, but not much more — in this film at least, and the landscapes are filmed with a striking apathy. Worst of all is the drivel about "the good poor people" — so damn condescending. Hadn't Kurosawa had his take on the subject with the great Lower Depths ? And there was no condescension then. For a great film on the Japanese slums (other than Lower Depths, that is), try Humanity and Paper Balloons. And well, feel-good movies are seldom good.

A samurai and his wife search to find happiness with themselves, their relationship, and their station as they weather the disillusion of their past and current circumstances.Written by Akira Kurosawa and directed by Takashi Koizumi after Kurosawa's death. This is a breathtaking reflection of Kurosawa's early and later storytelling sensabilities. But it is a very complex film, one that upon initial viewing may defy the viewers expectations of the samurai genre and seem simplistic, overly long, or as one reviewer described: unexciting.This film reminds me very much of Red Beard, another Kurosawa story that while set in feudal Japan is not necessarily a samurai film.Rating 9/10

Ame Agaru, though scripted by master Kurosawa, and like many of his other movies, based on a short story by Yamamoto Shugoro, just doesn't work. The Kurosawa crew is the same, thus the cinematic beauty remains, but being on master Kurosawa's footsteps doesn't make Koizumi Takashi a Kurosawa Akira. Master Kurosawa was a war hawk, and his battlefield was the set. If he wanted a slope where there was none, his crew mounted the dirt and built the slope to suit his visions. If a whole field of wheat had to be hand-painted in gold, the crew went out there and spent the day preparing for a shot. Master Kurosawa could single out and yell at an extra in a mob scene of battling feudal warriors for not falling correctly, like a dying samurai would. With all the good intentions with which Ame Agaru was made, it does not have the edge at which master Kurosawa yanked his actors. The actors in Ame Agaru are all fine actors, but they are not the fierce soldiers led by general Kurosawa. Instead, they are the humanitarian souls who volunteered to come help victims long after the general was gone and the war was over.