TheFilmReviewer 1
A brilliantly undervalued early work from Akira Kurosawa and a young Toshiro Mifune, Scandal shines bright with a riveting Takashi Shimura supporting performance. Although touchingly close to It's a Wonderful Life, Scandal provides its own surprises in addition to its heartwarming premise.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
03/02/23
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william d
I expected a film about a man and woman dealing with Japanese libel law and civil procedure. Instead, it's really a story about a weak man who happens to be a lawyer, and it's not particularly interesting.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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Audience Member
In 1949 Japan, an artist is in the mountains doing a painting when he is approached by a woman who turns out to be a news media-shy female celebrity singer. As she has missed her intended bus, he takes her on the back of his motorcycle to an inn where they separately stay the night. When they converse together, some photographers in the area spot them and take a photograph of them, and the scandal sheet they work for invents a story about their being lovers, confident that they will get away with it. But both artist and singer are outraged by the false story, with the scandal making them both public laughingstocks, and a decrepit lawyer visits them and offers to help them in filing a lawsuit against the scandal sheet. Suspicious at first, the artist visits the lawyer's home and discovers that he has a daughter who is seriously ill with tuberculosis. Then the lawsuit is filed...but how trustworthy is this lawyer? Great performances from all, especially the questionable lawyer who suffers poverty and guilt and shame as the scandal sheet people press bribes upon him, knowing how desperate for money he is. What will happen? Will the lawyer end up destroying himself, his family, and the clients who trust him? The performers put life into this otherwise trite message, and we learn a few things about Japan in that era-they do celebrate (secular) Christmas and New Year's, and even sing Western songs with Japanese lyrics to go with these holidays.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/22/23
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Audience Member
Kurosawa frequently deals with addiction and its consequences; the addict is easily bought and sold to feed their need. Thus far, Takashi Shimura has been his go to guy in that role. In Ikiru, it takes him off course from his true purpose in his dying body, and Drunken Angel speaks for itself. Here it's gambling that makes him an easy target for the Amor tabloid establishment. Shimura and Mifune drunk by a dirty pond - where have we seen this before? Kurosawa takes inspiration from himself, but never is it more lovable than in this Christmas scene, when the stars have apparently fallen in the filth and cleansed it like a baptism. The way they stumble around and eventually fall is priceless. This theme of star purity threads itself in the end, that for the first time, Aoe saw a star come into existence through his fallible lawyer, whose arc this story belongs to. Step aside Mifune, you only looked like you were the lead.
The daughter's well-being determined by the darkness her father is dipping in and out of is a beautifully organic device. Her tragedy is what finally gives the lawyer nothing left to live for; defending the truth is fighting for her honor, and he now transforms through her passing. In Ikiru, Shimura is the Christ figure, in Scandal, his daughter is.
I love the holiday setting and the use of the New Year song, Kurosawa framing his subjects through tinsel and ornaments. I should note that I happen to be watching two paparazzi films tonight, this and La Dolce Vita, and they both feature Jingle Bells.
Another staccato, teary, drunk hunchback, brilliantly emotional performance by Shimura, and a bravado, tough, handsome one for Mifune.
The tabloid image of the supposed scandal that fed the whole story is ripped to shreds by wind erosion in the final frame of the film. Winter kicked it's ass.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/12/23
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Audience Member
Kurosawa brings his kinetic style to this still-current look at celebrities suing a magazine for some slanderous paparazzi photos. It may be in bad taste to attack the media these days, but let's face it, our journalists come in all shapes and sizes, from the most scrupulous to those willing to print unfounded gossip and, yes, "alternative facts". Toshiro Mifune (playing an artist) and Shirley Yamaguchi (playing a singer) are photographed at a spa after an accidental meeting and a magazine ("Amour") plays this up into a love affair and scandal. When they decide to sue, a lawyer (played by the great Takashi Shimura) pleads to take their case because of his heightened sense of justice. However, he proves spineless and easily manipulated by the (evil) publisher. Nevertheless, Mifune and Yamaguchi stick with him out of concern for his dying daughter (she has tuberculosis). For a while, I thought this would be up there with Kurosawa's best but the courtroom scenes allow some of the tension to dissipate. Moreover, it is my problem but I couldn't accept Shimura in this worm-like role after his sympathetic performances in Ikiru, Seven Samurai, and Stray Dog. Still, there is much to enjoy here (particularly the style - and Mifune on that motorcycle!).
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/04/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Strange movie. You think the movie is going to be about the artist and the singer, but it gradually becomes more about the lawyer. The sick daughter felt too much like a crutch for the movie.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/16/23
Full Review
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