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I started off 2022 by watching Akira Kurosawa’s first “masterpiece” Rashomon, which officially kicked off my dive in world cinema. 365 days later, I’ve seen over 10 more of Kurosawa’s films, ranging from good to bad, and dozens more of essential foreign films

I felt it was only fitting that I finally cap off this year with his final masterpiece, an absolute spectacle of a film that bolsters one of the most incredible lead performances I’ve seen from Tatsuya Nakadai, who’s quickly become one of my favorite Japanese leading men

The film is undeniably a visual feast, and several sequences, the raid on Hidetora’s castle especially, are immortal works of art. However, like a lot of Kurosawa’s work, I felt a bit detached from the story and was left feeling a bit cold in the end

I’m admittedly not familiar with the story of King Lear, this being the first adaptation I’ve seen in full, so maybe I didn’t appreciate it as much as I could have, but still I felt this movie lacked a lot of the signature traits that typically get me emotionally invested in a story