After the Rain (2000)

originally i felt a review of Ame Agaru would be redundant, but seeing as everyone else (almost) seems to think this is a great film, i have to raise a voice.After The Rain is a mediocre film. Not in a bad way, but rather in an uninteresting way. First, the story is simple, very simple. Let's keep this in mind and pause here for a second.Second, there are the many parts of the film where Kurosawa would put in some touches of class, some exposition of a more profound aspect of his characters, some haunting sights, some rhythmic pauses to the drama. After The Rain has none of this; or rather, there are blank spots where Kurosawa would have put something cool which makes his movies into masterpieces, instead here we have nothing but boredom, emptiness, mediocrity and shallowness. In the end, this is a film from a director who thinks he is Kurosawa, starring an actor who thinks he is Toshiro Mifune, telling a story everyone involved thinks its profound, while it's not.(Kurosawa had the ability to extract moments of great drama from his actors, that's why he didn't need complicated stories)So yeah, we appreciate the tribute, but it didn't come out very well.My final vote: 5/10 Don't bother, there's nothing to see.

In the beginning of the Eighteenth Century, in the transition period between the luxurious Genroku Era (1688-1703) and the simple Kyocho Era (1716-1735), the ronin – a samurai without a master - Ihei Misawa (Akira Terao) and his sweet wife Tayo Misawa (Yoshiko Miyazaki) are trapped in a very humble inn with very poor guests. The rain does not stop, and the group is unable to follow their journeys, once the water level of the river is too high to be crossed. The good and decent Ilhei goes to a dojo without the knowledge of Tayo and disputes a fight, and with the collected money, he buys food and sake for the starving costumers, making the people very happy. After the rain, in an incident with some locals, he meets the feudal landlord, Lord Nagai Izuminokami Shigeaki (Shiro Mifune), who invites him to be the chief of art of fencing of his warriors, but the envy and proud prevail and Misawa is dismissed from the aimed job. The quiet Tayo decides to present her optimistic and touching viewpoint of what happened to Ilhei.I was reluctant to see "Ame agaru" due to a wrong expectation and feeling. I believed the director Takashi Koizumi was an opportunist, using the name of Akira Kurosawa to promote himself in his career. How wrong I was! Indeed, "Ame agaru" is a very beautiful and sensitive feel-good movie and a great homage of Takashi Koizumi to his master Akira Kurosawa. The direction is simply perfect; the performances are stunning, with the actors and actresses showing passion, heart and soul in their interpretations, highlighting Akira Terao and Yoshiko Miyazaki; the locations are simple but beautiful; and the lovely story is wonderful, with a magnificent, optimistic and very human message in the end. My vote is nine.Title (Brazil): "Depois da Chuva" ("After the Rain")

I left the movie feeling great and light... the characters are very charismatic and the main character great. Anyone who likes Samurais and Japan of course will like this movie even more. Many of Kurosawa´s films are boring to most people... this one isn´t ! Not pretentious at all. This movie is a must see. 10 !

Ame Agaru, though scripted by master Kurosawa, and like many of his other movies, based on a short story by Yamamoto Shugoro, just doesn't work. The Kurosawa crew is the same, thus the cinematic beauty remains, but being on master Kurosawa's footsteps doesn't make Koizumi Takashi a Kurosawa Akira. Master Kurosawa was a war hawk, and his battlefield was the set. If he wanted a slope where there was none, his crew mounted the dirt and built the slope to suit his visions. If a whole field of wheat had to be hand-painted in gold, the crew went out there and spent the day preparing for a shot. Master Kurosawa could single out and yell at an extra in a mob scene of battling feudal warriors for not falling correctly, like a dying samurai would. With all the good intentions with which Ame Agaru was made, it does not have the edge at which master Kurosawa yanked his actors. The actors in Ame Agaru are all fine actors, but they are not the fierce soldiers led by general Kurosawa. Instead, they are the humanitarian souls who volunteered to come help victims long after the general was gone and the war was over.