page_title: Rashomon
section_title: Japanese critical responses
hierarchical_section_title: Rashomon / Reception / Japanese critical responses
caption_attribution_description: English: Theatrical release poster for 1950 Japanse movie en:Rashomon.
context_page_description: Rashomon is a 1950 Jidaigeki psychological thriller/crime film directed by Akira Kurosawa, working in close collaboration with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa. It stars Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyō, Masayuki Mori, and Takashi Shimura. The plot of the story and characters are based upon Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short story "In a Grove", with the title and framing story being based on "Rashomon", another short story by Akutagawa. Every element is largely identical, from the murdered samurai speaking through a Shinto psychic, the bandit in the forest, the monk, the rape of the wife and the dishonest retelling of the events in which everyone shows their ideal self by lying. The story takes place in the 8th century at Rashomon, the South gate to Heian Kyo.
  The film is known for a plot device that involves various characters providing subjective, alternative, self-serving, and contradictory versions of the same incident.
context_section_description: Although it won two Japanese awards and performed well at the domestic box-office, most Japanese critics did not like the film. When it received positive responses in the West, Japanese critics were baffled; some decided that it was only admired there because it was "exotic", others thought that it succeeded because it was more "Western" than most Japanese films.
  In a collection of interpretations of Rashomon, Donald Richie writes that "the confines of 'Japanese' thought could not contain the director, who thereby joined the world at large". He also quotes Kurosawa criticizing the way the "Japanese think too little of our own [Japanese] things".
caption: Japanese poster for Rashomon
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