Ikiru (Living)

Opens Friday 18 July

'A masterpiece of humanist cinema' ****
Empire

Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru is the modern-day tale of a lonely man confronting death in post-war Tokyo. One of the greatest actors of Japanese cinema, Takashi Shimura, plays Kanji Watanabe, a middle-aged civil servant who has slavishly devoted himself to his job for thirty years, only to find that he now has inoperable stomach cancer. With limited time left, and the feeling that he has never truly lived at all, Watanabe embarks on a quest to make the most of his remaining days. After bouts of self-pity, a spell of hedonism and a doomed attempt at a platonic relationship, he commits himself doggedly to the task of converting a city dump into a children's playground.

Tough-minded and unsentimental throughout, this is one of Kurosawa's finest films and also offers a vivid and satirical portrait of post-war Tokyo.

Opens 18 July

• BFI Southbank

27 - 30 August

• Edinburgh,Filmhouse

From 5 September

• Bradford, National Media Museum
• Bristol, Watershed

12 - 18 September

• Manchester, Cornerhouse

28 September

• London, Phoenix East Finchley

4 - 7 October

• Dundee Contemporary Arts

6 - 7 October

• Coventry, Warwick Arts Centre

14 October

• London, Riverside Studios Hammersmith

26 October

• London, Barbican

30 October

• Liverpool, Picturehouse at FACT

19 November

• Exeter, Phoenix

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