Akira Kurosawa

The Bad Sleep Well

The Bad Sleep Well

A young executive hunts down his father’s killer in director Akira Kurosawa’s scathing The Bad Sleep Well. Continuing his legendary collaboration with actor Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa combines elements of Hamlet and American film noir to chilling effect in exposing the corrupt boardrooms of postwar corporate Japan.

Film Info

  • Japan
  • 1960
  • 150 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 2.35:1
  • Japanese
  • Spine #319

Special Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer
  • Documentary on the making of The Bad Sleep Well, created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create
  • Original theatrical trailer
  • New and improved subtitle translation
  • New essays by film critic Chuck Stephens and director Michael Almereyda (Deadwood, Hamlet)

    New cover by Eric Skillman

Purchase Options

Collector's Sets

Collector's Set

AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa

AK 100: 25 Films by Kurosawa

DVD Box Set

25 Discs

$319.00

Out Of Print

Special Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer
  • Documentary on the making of The Bad Sleep Well, created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create
  • Original theatrical trailer
  • New and improved subtitle translation
  • New essays by film critic Chuck Stephens and director Michael Almereyda (Deadwood, Hamlet)

    New cover by Eric Skillman
The Bad Sleep Well
Cast
Toshiro Mifune
Koichi Nishi
Masayuki Mori
Public Corporation Vice President Iwabuchi
Tatsuya Mihashi
Tatsuo Iwabuchi
Takashi Shimura
Moriyama
Kyoko Kagawa
Keiko Nishi
Kô Nishimura
Contract Officer Shirai
Takeshi Kato
Itakura
Kamatari Fujiwara
Assistant-to-the-Chief Wada
Chishu Ryu
Public Prosecutor Nonaka
Credits
Director
Akira Kurosawa
Screenplay
Shinobu Hashimoto
Screenplay
Eijiro Hisaita
Screenplay
Ryuzo Kikushima
Screenplay
Hideo Oguni
Screenplay
Akira Kurosawa
Producer
Akira Kurosawa
Producer
Tomoyuki Tanaka
Music
Masaru Sato
Cinematography
Yuzuru Aizawa
Editing
Akira Kurosawa
Production design
Yoshiro Muraki
Costume design
Shoji Kurihara

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Akira Kurosawa

Writer, Producer, Director

Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa

Arguably the most celebrated Japanese filmmaker of all time, Akira Kurosawa had a career that spanned from the Second World War to the early nineties and that stands as a monument of artistic, entertainment, and personal achievement. His best-known films remain his samurai epics Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, but his intimate dramas, such as Ikiru and High and Low, are just as searing. The first serious phase of Kurosawa’s career came during the postwar era, with Drunken Angel and Stray Dog, gritty dramas about people on the margins of society that featured the first notable appearances by Toshiro Mifune, the director’s longtime leading man. Kurosawa would subsequently gain international fame with Rashomon, a breakthrough in nonlinear narrative and sumptuous visuals. Following a personal breakdown in the late sixties, Kurosawa rebounded by expanding his dark brand of humanism into new stylistic territory, with films such as Kagemusha and Ran, visionary, color, epic ruminations on modern man and nature.