The Inheritance

On his deathbed, a wealthy businessman announces that his fortune is to be split equally among his three illegitimate children, whose whereabouts are unknown. A bevy of lawyers and associates begin machinations to procure the money for themselves, resorting to the use of impostors and blackmail. Yet all are outwitted by the cunning of the man’s secretary (Keiko Kishi), in this entertaining condemnation of unchecked greed.

Japan
1962
108 minutes
Black & White
2.40:1
Japanese

Available In

Collector's Set

Kobayashi Against the System

DVD Box Set

4 Discs

$41.96

Cast & Credits

Cast

Keiko Kishi: Yasuko Miyagawa
Tatsuya Nakadai: Furukawa
So Yamamura: Senzo Kawara
Yusuke Kawazu: Sadao Narimune
Mari Yoshimura: Mariko
Minoru Chiaki: Junichi Fujii
Misako Watanabe: Satoe

Credits

Director: Masaki Kobayashi
Produced by: Shigeru Wakatsuki
Produced by: Masaki Kobayashi
Based on the novel by: Norio Nanjo
Screenplay: Koichi Inagaki
Cinematography: Takashi Kawamata
Production design: Shigemasa Toda
Editor: Keiichi Uraoka
Music: Toru Takemitsu

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Tatsuya Nakadai

Actor

A dynamic, handsome star who got his start in Japanese cinema during its 1950s golden age, the Tokyo-born Tatsuya Nakadai defies easy categorization. He is convincing whether playing a mercenary lone wolf or a heartsick love interest, a hero or a villain, in a sleek suit or samurai robes, and just as comfortable blending in to an ensemble as commanding a spotlight. The stage-trained actor was discovered, while working as a shop clerk, in 1953 by director Masaki Kobayashi, who promptly cast him in a tiny role in the controversial drama The Thick-Walled Room; a year later, he was given a walk-on part in Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. After a major breakthrough as a young yakuza in Kobayashi’s Black River, Nakadai was on his way to becoming one of Japan’s busiest actors; he would work several more times with both Kobayashi and Kurosawa, as well as Hideo Gosha, Kon Ichikawa, Mikio Naruse, Kihachi Okamoto, and Hiroshi Teshigahara—the cream of the nation’s crop of film artists. Nakadai, still acting into his eighties, is perhaps most often recalled for his ravaging performances in Kobayashi’s epic war drama The Human Condition (1959–61) and Kurosawa’s Ran (1985), in which he embodies unforgettably a cinematic King Lear for the ages.