Alex Kuraica The question 'are you ready, are you ready to die?' is answered, as a commonplace, in the negative. Who of us is ready to die? None. Even old age, the harbinger of defeat, cannot accept the fate it portends: an untimely death, for all death is untimely. There is acceptance of death, sure, but no one, save the seldom few who are most miserable, invites it into their home. To me it is a truism that there is nothing more lucid and apparent and viscerally vocal than our united cry - Madadayo! But there is something more at play in this film than this pithy commonplace, something deeper. It is a masterpiece, and one sadly overlooked in his dense oeuvre.Why are you not ready to die? Here is the broader and more philosophical inquiry at the heart of this movie; and I invite you to look into your own life and recall the opulence of emotion in your most miserable moments, and to ask yourself unflinchingly why, if the egregiousness truly stacks above your head, like the loss of a beloved cat named Nora, do you continue to live in this world. What is the cause behind your proclamation - Madadayo! Is it affirmative, or is it a resignation? Misery befalls us all. But is misery all there is? Of course not, and Kurosawa rightly thinks not: "There is an enviable world of warm hearts." The professor tells it to us himself: he would have sunk into the mire of his despair had it not been for the kindness and generosity of his friends and relatives, and even those strangers unfamiliar with his plight.He has a crisis when he loses the cat and another one in the shack. Both times he is saved by his friends. There is much that happens in a man's life, much of it good, much ambivalent; he sees many evils and performs some, regrettably, himself.But the answer is there, in our lives, staring us in the face. Why are you not will to say you are ready for death? The world of warm hearts is astoundingly beautiful. It is beautifully portrayed in the movie, with heartfelt earnestness in the manner in which the students revere and support their professor; but, more to the point, it is also intrinsically beautiful. In the final scene the professor, now an old man, dreams himself a boy, a remembrance perhaps, and finds himself playing a game of hide and seek with some friends on a farm among conical stacks of hay. The boys on the road call out to him continuously, are you ready? as he tries to find a suitable hiding place among the hay. Madadayo (not yet) he exclaims to them. He then slowly covers himself with hay and just as he is about to say that he is ready for them (ready for death) the sun sets over the horizon of a surreal landscape imbued with green, orange and red, a multicoloured dream, and the camera pans up and over the sky, and it is here that we see the beauty of the world; it is this beauty, which is joined with the ethical, the kindness of people, that stops the young boy and the old man from saying that they are ready; it is this solemn beauty that keeps us all going, if we should choose, in our carousals and sojourns, to take notice of it. You are left with a broad smile on your face as you take leave of this master, and every time I think about him I am happy for the life he lived and sad that he departed us so soon.

Jose Cruz Madadayo was the final film Kurosawa made and the film itself is about the process of life itself and the passage of time as the director himself was contemplating his own mortality, since he was well over 80 years old by the time he directed this film and only at that age he was at the optimal position to direct a film like this. Several of his other late films (those that he filmed after ca. 1980) deal with the process of aging, such as Ran, which is an epic film about an ageing feudal lord, here we have a much more personal work about an aging professor.The subtitles of this film are rather bad, at the least the ones that I had, since a friend of mine who spoke Japanese noticed several errors and the lack of details required to understand the film. So it would be a 7/10 film for those that don't speak Japanese.

pchow2ca I am a big fan of Mr.Kurosawa because his movie is really a brain teaser. I had only watched this movie one time and had to admit that I have not totally understand this movie yet. Since it took me more than ten years to enjoy his previous movie, Rhapsody in August(if interested, please read my review on this one); I am prepare to watch this movie again and again because I think that is what Mr. Kurosawa want. From the surface, I could tell that part of the movie was for him to thank his audiences for their support this year. They supported him even they don't understand him(student who could sleep with his eye open,)with his not so funny jokes, and his not so good movies due to lack of budget(horse and deer meat stow.). There are many scenes in the story that Kurosawa expresses his views and lessons of life (like the one he told to the kids who served the birthday cakes.). I am prepare to take my time to explore this movie in detail. As he metaphored at the end, perhaps life is a game of hide and seek which a boy always looking for a better spot to hide, neverless, he will be and want to be find. The question that I have was what is it one is trying to hide from in Mr. Kurosawa's point of view? Is it God or one's true self?

niwasan I have not seen any other of Kurosawa's movies, so I comment on this film from that perspective. This movie is wonderful, one of my favourite movies. It doesn't try to follow the typical movie routine... it is far different to what most viewers would be used to. To enjoy it you have to realise that nothing is really going to happen - this film is simply made to be enjoyed.I would however like to complain about the TERRIBLE treatment this film has been given on DVD. Both the Hong Kong and US releases are awful quality. There is a good Japanese DVD, but it has no English subtitles. Come one someone, release the remastered version please!