Friendship blossoms between a Russian army captain and a local hunter he recruits to guide his soldiers through the wilderness in this Akira Kurosawa epic filmed on location in the Soviet Union. The film benefits from Kurosawa's eye for natural beauty when it comes to vast landscapes untouched by civilisation, however, what really drives the film is the bond that develops between the main characters - and in spite of other soldiers ridiculing the local hunter behind his back. This very real bond leads to an especially engaging final quarter in which the captain tries to give the hunter a better life by inviting him to live with him, only to discover that despite their deep friendship, they each want something different out of life ("how do you live inside a box?"). The first three quarters of the film are not quite as compelling as this final section, but they are still engaging enough as the two main characters survive through harsh conditions, coming to appreciate each other just a little more in the process. The movie may have benefited from less focus on the other soldiers who are rather dull and ultimately interchangeable, and yet, they serve as an acute counterpoint to their captain who is able to see past stereotypes and racial prejudice and recognise right away the skills, talent and humanity of the hunter who, in some ways, is more civilised than the soldiers who mock him.

I too loved this movie when I saw in cinema, I have just bought a copy from Amazon and hope with my wide screen TV that it will give a satisfactory viewing. I was so impressed with the relationship between the two main characters and considering that this movie was made during the height of the Cold War in an area of Russia that was very restricted to visit, it is a wonder that it was ever made. I wonder if Russian censors ever got to see this film as it shows an official wavering between duty and his personal sense of right and wrong.It has subtitles but do not let that put you off watching this marvelous film that has spectacular scenery and dynamic interplay between the protagonists plus a political comment (between the lines) about Russia of the time and the world in general when first world meets third world... {:~)

Kurosawa is first and foremost, a story-teller. Through his stories we see much of ourselves--who we are, can be, the limits of our ethos and preconceived notions of who we are or capable of. Kurosawa amazes us with his range. Stories set in contemporary Japan. Ancient Japan. From businessmen to detectives to .... a strong little man living alone in the most desolate land on earth--Siberia. It is based on memoirs? of a Russian Army Captain who encountered Dersu at the end of the 19th century, when Russia was still mapping what it was--something that George Washington did when our country was unexplored. The story, of course, cannot avoid the necessary comparison of modern man with paleolithic nomadic man. What is good, evil, the measure of men specific to one's time. What senses have we lost or have been dulled by living in cocoons of civilization, warm houses and shared responsibility for warding off cruel nature and the creatures who inhabit the shadows outside the firelight. How important are fire, salt, matches, ammo.... all precious things that should be husbanded and even left in forest shelters for those who might need them in times of privation and soul lost wandering. Dersu says, "You bad man!" and "You very good man." and sometimes to the same man! He sees that no man is either all good or evil, but is capable in each moment of becoming either. We see men whose"normal" lives in civilization were shattered, and they went out into the wilderness to die or live, and let the gods determine their fate. I fell in love with this movie. And I laugh at many of us--the most modern and out-of-touch with nature: nature as beauty and as cruel harvester of our bodies when we can no longer push headlong into the dark blizzard. Now, so many of us dishonor the remaining tigers, bears, apex predators and a world seemed too green and gauzy and nonthreatening to so many. Why not go for a jog in the Colorado mountains? How many are killed, eaten by mountain lions, because they didn't respect nature as she is. Bears, wolves--why they won't hurt you if you but sit and gaze upon them with zen-like concentration--I fear you not, my brother. Yet this movie shows that we need not hate what ultimately comes to take us away to that land from in no traveler returns. The tiger is a god. And when one cannot kill him, clean and swift, and he runs away, then the gods say you will die soon. Not just a pretty creature to aim one's camera or rifle at and sigh. Or that fool in Herzog's "Grizzly Man". Anyone who knows the out of doors and the power nature still has over us, can only laugh at the idiot who pranced and danced amongst the grizzlies. Well, joke's on you, mister. It just so happened your hubris and modern sensibilities and lies you've told yourself about nature came around to bite you..... et' you.Dersu Uzala is the divine opposite of Herzog's either ironic or stupid "Grizzly Man". Nature was neither a winter playground or an ugly place at all. For Dersu reveled in the smells, sounds and cornering winds that made the fire become something different with each poke of an ember reddened stick. Where life is now in the living. And nature is neither Disneyland nor a living hell, but is the relentless earth, moiling and seething, buckling up and taking one finally, in the end. A superb movie that should be seen by many many more folk.

This is a great movie. As noted by other reviewers, the cinematography is fantastic. I saw it on DVD on a large screen and it was majestic. My comment is not so much on the movie effects and the acting, all of which has Kurosawa's signature of an art film, but on the complicated message that it weaves. So complicated that it is hard to see if you watch the film once. Ursu is a clever man because he knows the forest, but in the city he is not clever at all. On the contrary, he stumbles on inane things such as paying for water to the water delivery man, or trying to fire his rifle in the middle of the city or trying to camp on a curbside. It is as if the man is very good in certain contexts and not good at all in other contexts. Now, if you think about it, the same can be said of any one you know, unless he happens to be Albert Schweitzer. The Being is the sum of a man and his milieu. Captain Arseniev is not very good in the forest. He makes many mistakes and Ursu must lend his helping hand on many occasions to save poor captain from his own follies. In the city he seems to be doing OK, with a nice house, a beautiful wife and a real cute boy. So what would the good captain think is good for Ursu? Obviously, what is also good for him: city life. And he takes the man who saved his life to the city, to his house, but that breaks the sum of man and milieu, and the Being becomes miserable. Then the captain finally gets it and lets Ursu go back to his world of hunting in the forest he loves so much. But the captain botches it up again. To express his love for Ursu, he gives him a great rifle and that will bring death on Ursu because other greedy people would kill Ursu to get his rifle. Captain Arseniev knows that Ursu's eyesight is going downhill so a great rifle would not do as much good as a pair of glasses. Captain Arseniev also knows that the forest is inhabited by evil people and has seen the damage and pillaging that nasty guys to do animals and people in the forest. But he sends a half-blind mind with a valuable possession to a place infested with thieves. The end was easy to predict: Ursu will be killed by thieves who want his rifle, which is exactly what the bureaucrat at the crime scene tells Arseniev. The moral of the story is that you should not try to make other people happy with things that make you happy, unless you both share the milieu where the happiness occur. Arseniev should have learned to appreciate the Being, the sum of man and milieu, rather than the man alone. Kurosawa is inviting us to be more thoughtful when we try to do good.