I Live in Fear

Released Jan 25, 1967

1h 45m

Drama

List

75%

Tomatometer

12 Reviews

76%

Audience Score

500+ Ratings

"I Live in Fear" is an expressive, caustic, portrait of madness. Toshiro Mifune plays an aging industrialist driven to madness over fears of a nuclear attack. The most frightening aspect of Kurosawa's film is not the threat of nuclear annihilation, but the proliferation of man's inhumanity and greed, expressed by the family's zeal to commit their father and keep their inheritances intact.

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Jonathan Rosenbaum

Chicago Reader

I persist in finding it among the most memorable: eerie, troubling, and haunting.

Sep 12, 2019

Full Review

Bosley Crowther

New York Times

I feel sure that Mr. Kurosawa could have come up with a more constructive thought on how people should use their energies to pacifistic purpose than the negative one he gives us here.

Rated: 1.5/5

May 9, 2005

Full Review

Gary Dowell

Dallas Morning News

A compelling look at postwar Japan as well as the onset of Cold War paranoia.

Rated: B+

Apr 10, 2003

Full Review

Anton Bitel

Projected Figures

...exposing the faultlines in an extended (and far from nuclear) family, and more generally in Japan's post-war society, through the disruptive effects of one man's well-grounded yet excessive fear.

May 12, 2020

Full Review

Louis Proyect

rec.arts.movies.reviews

A rough adaptation of King Lear, just as was "Ran" that Kurosawa made 30 years later. Not without its problems, but any Kurosawa is better than the Cineplex crap in your local neighborhood.

Sep 2, 2010

Full Review

Fernando F. Croce

CinePassion

Akira Kurosawa's social x-raying is a continuation of Ikiru

Sep 6, 2009

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laurent b

Kurosawa doesn't depicts here the fear of nuclear, or the danger of nuclear (which he doesn't deny of course), but precisely that the main danger is elsewhere... And it is so amazing to see that more than fifty years before now, he already understood that people could try to preserve their material comfort rather than their own lives, and they could go as far as put people in jail or asylum rather than renounce their life standards. So "I live in Fear" has to be discover now more than ever...

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

john m

The detachment from any of the complex characters running around makes for somewhat of an irritating experience for half of it, but Mifune balances his character's dilemmas and psychosis so well that the last 20 minutes or so of this film launch it into brilliance in many ways.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

This could very well be Toshiro Mifune's best performance of his career. Despite only being 35 years old at the time of the movie, Mifune was incredibly convincing as a 70 year old man. While I didn't grow up in an era that was bogged down by the fear of nuclear annihilation, it was very easy to empathize with Mifune's character as we see him overwhelmed by the fear of the h-bomb. This movie reminded me very much of 12 Angry Men, as the story is told through the eyes of a principled man tasked with deliberating the legal issues at the center of this movie's plot. A special shout-out to Takashi Shimura's performance in this movie is warranted. Respect.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/27/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Toshiro Mifune was only 35 but here he portrays a man in his seventies. He gives a legendary performance and even looks emaciated, but I don't know how much weight he lost. This is a Depressing Kurosawa film in which a wealthy family patriarch develops a morbid fear of war, especially the hydrogen bomb. He attempts to relocate his entire family to Brazil where he thinks everyone will be safe. But because of financial and cultural reasons his family fights him tooth and nail, which leads to all hell breaking loose. It may be slow going for some viewers but its aftermath leaves a devastating impression. This was a big failure at the box office, but today it is prescient because of the Lunatic in North Korea, whose wet dream it is to acquire the Hydrogen bomb someday and then use it on Japan.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/14/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Pretty good, but not Kurosawa's best.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/05/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I Live In Fear is very direct and even melodramatic, but its piercing commentary and fiery performances, as well as Kurosawa's well trained eye, make for a ballsy exploration into the anxious mind.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/18/23

Full Review

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Akira Kurosawa

Director

Toshiro Mifune

Kiichi Nakajima

Eiko Miyoshi

Toyo

Haruko Tôgô

Yoki Nakajima

Masao Shimizu

Yamazaki, Yoshi's Husband

Yutaka Sada

Ichiro

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Synopsis

"I Live in Fear" is an expressive, caustic, portrait of madness. Toshiro Mifune plays an aging industrialist driven to madness over fears of a nuclear attack. The most frightening aspect of Kurosawa's film is not the threat of nuclear annihilation, but the proliferation of man's inhumanity and greed, expressed by the family's zeal to commit their father and keep their inheritances intact.

Director: Akira Kurosawa
Screenwriter: Shinobu Hashimoto, Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni
Production Co: Toho Company
Genre: Drama
Original Language: Japanese
Release Date (Theaters): Jan 25, 1967, Wide
Release Date (DVD): Jan 15, 2008
Runtime: 1h 45m
Sound Mix: Mono