MovieChat Forums > Hachigatsu no rapusodî (1991) Discussion > The failure of this film begins with...

The failure of this film begins with...

posted 18 years ago by trochesset
10 replies | jump to latest

The casting and dressing of the children. Not only are all of them horrible little actors, but their constumess are hideous, and the writing for them makes me cringe. If they weren't the main characters and the ones carrying the story along, then I may be able to overlook these flaws, but these are no minor flaws.

The best parts of the film involve the grandma, be it her ar the temple, her during the lightning storm at the house, or her running off in the rain, these were all well acted, all well shot, but not enough to save this production.

Of the 19 Kurosawa films I have seen, this is easily the worst.

3/10

[–] rooprect 17 years ago

Agreed. I hated the kids' acting and the STUPID script they had to read! I felt like I was watching "Hardy Boys & Nancy Drew in the Case of the Atomic Holocaust". Not appropriate at all.

I'll be the first to say that the bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki were the darkest moments in the history of our planet. But this movie made a mockery out of it with its melodramatic script and bad acting. Wtf was Kurosawa thinking?

[–] rachaella 17 years ago

The acting of the kids was certainly sub-par, I agree. However, the way they dressed was probably more a product of the year the movie was made than anything else. I think getting better child actors and a better script could have improved the film significantly.

[–] sullenboyoo 17 years ago

I really have no idea wtf u all r talking about. I see no problem with the script and the acting of the children. Every time i see children acting, i always sense something is wrong and the illusion of the film is broken for me. I do not accept the kid in the movie is really such and such a character. Because they do something or another that reminds me they r an actor. Im taken out of the film for that shot or scene. But that did not occur once in this film. I was in the film ,in the illusion that those kids, specially the youngest was a kid on summer vacation visiting his grandmother.

I do not speak japanese. Maybe theres something i missed? Besides watching tons of crappy anime and a hand full of kurosawa films, I guess i wouldn't be able tell what native japanese would sound like as much as a native japanese person can tell. Is that were the acting went wrong?

Btw this is absolutely not the worst kurosawa film. Of what ive seen. I would say sanjuro and stray dog arnt really my favorite. And rashomon is overrated.

[–] Bishop_of_Battle 14 years ago

The children didn't nearly bother me as much as the vapid dialogue. It's not really a bad movie(there's more than a few beautiful shots in the film) but it's poor by Kurosawa's standards.

[–] Kinematico 16 years ago

I haven't seen every film from Kurosawa but IMO this is better than Madadayo.

What I never could understand is why the japanese characters felt so ashamed on talking to the americans about the nuclear bombs dropped on them. I mean the ones who should be ashamed should be those who dropped the bombs, not the ones who lost their relatives because of it.

Perhaps is something that only a japanese could understand completely. Hope some fellow japanese could explain me why it was (and perhaps still is) taboo to talk about the nuclear bombs in Japan.

[–] bhilburn 12 years ago

We shouldn't be ashamed per say of dropping the atomic bombs on the Empire of Japan. It wasn't a very pleasant thing to do, but it did end the war rather abruptly and saved millions of lives from being lost. The Japanese behaved rather barbaric during the terror they started when they invaded China in 1931, and expanded when they bombed Pearl Harbor. They were just as inhuman as the Nazis and the Soviets during that period of the world.

Maybe one of the reasons the Japanese people do not speak much of the atomic bombings is because it ended a long and cruel war that they started in the first place.

[–] stormbear 13 years ago

I think the wardrobe is part of the story. At the time of the film, Japanese youth were becoming heavily Westernized. The t-shirts the kids wear are imprinted with places in America; Brooklyn, USC (University of Southern California) and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

I think it was a way for Kurosawa to paint eh dichotomy of the generation who survived WWII and those of us who came after.

As Grandma said, it was the fault of war.

[–] Gloede_The_Saint 13 years ago

I supposed they dressed like normal kids in the 90's. Not sure how that's a flaw. Didn't mind their acting either. Great film!

My 105 favorite films - http://www.imdb.com/list/5pdE8_ZEh0Y/?publish=save

[–] OneFilmLover 10 years ago

Having just watched all of Kurosawa's films over the past few months from Sanshiro Sugata all the way to Madadayo I'm confident in saying Rhapsody in August is the worst film in his career. It's the only of his 30 films that I actively disliked. Even the lesser films or films that failed to live up to what AK hoped to achieve still had cinematic spark & personality. Rhapsody in August is the only film in his career that feels off. Combine the 90 year old Kurosawa trying to write for contemporary children of the age with the general awfulness that is Richard Gere & mix it up with the least compelling cinematic imagery of AK's career & don't forget to include a dash of offensive naivety (in my opinion the only real disastrous case of this in his career) & you've got a bad film.

Thankfully I think even AK knew this cause it's by far the shortest film he made in the second half of his career (post Red Beard). Still feels long though.

Madadayo was a much stronger film to go out on.

There. It's on the Internet. Thus it's official

[–] christomacin (4529) 6 years ago

Kurosawa was 81 when this film was released in 1991, for what it's worth.