Madadayo [1993]

Customers buy this item with Dersu Uzala [1975] DVD ~ Yuri Solomin

+ Total RRP: £43.98 Price For Both: £21.94

Product Description
Considered to be one of cinemas greatest talents, Akira Kurosawa s final film is released in the UK for the very first time. Warm, touching and rousing, MADADAYO is the perfect bookend to a lifetime of cinematic achievements. MADADAYO follows the last two decades in the life of Hyakken Uchida (Tetsuo Matsumura), a writer and teacher who retires in the war years of the early 1940 s. Beginning in 1943 (the year Kurosawa made his first feature), he is beloved by his students and colleagues who join him each year for a birthday celebration, toasting Mahda-kai? (Are you ready?) to which his answer is always Madadayo! which means Not yet! , acknowledging that death may be near but life goes on it is both a triumphant denial of death and a gentle plea for more time. In an interview at the time of the film's release, Kurosawa said his movie is about 'something very precious, which has been all but forgotten: The enviable world of warm hearts.' He added 'hope that all the people who have seen this picture will leave the theatre feeling refreshed, with broad smiles on their faces'

Synopsis
MADADAYO, Akira Kurosawa's 30th and final film, follows the life of an aging Japanese professor whose retirement coincides with the final years of World War II. Beloved by his former students, the professor often received them as guests in his home. That is, until his home is destroyed by an air raid. The students pool their resources and buy the professor and his wife a new house. In their new home, the couple gains a third member of the family, a stray cat named Nora, which the professor dotes on like a child. At one point, when Nora gets lost, a group of students dutifully search the city for the pet on behalf of their despondent professor. As the years go by, the students continue to hold annual birthday parties for their mentor. During these celebrations, they toast him with the question 'Mahda-kai?' (meaning "Are you ready?" to go on to the next world), to which he humorously responds, "Madadayo," meaning 'No, not yet.' Based on the life of author and professor Hyakken Uchida, Kurosawa's last film is also somewhat autobiographical, echoing the final years of the revered filmmaker's own life. Tatsuo Matsumura plays the feisty yet sensitive professor with great gusto, while Kyôko Kagawa appears as his soft-spoken wife; other Kurosawa acting alumni play his enthusiastic and adoring students. A thoroughly sentimental film, MADADAYO is a touching meditation on life and its inevitable end.

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