Rashomon (movie)

Rashomon (羅生門) is a Japanese motion picture made in 1950 by director Akira Kurosawa. It is one of Kurosawa's masterpieces, starring Toshiro Mifune. Based on the story by Akutagawa Ryunosuke, it describes a crime through the widely differing accounts of four witnesses, including the perpetrator. Rashomon was one of three films on which Kurosawa collaborated with master cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa.

Because of the film's success, the word "Rashomon" has come to refer to (in English and in other languages) a situation wherein the truth of an event becomes difficult to verify due to the conflicting nature of different witnesses.

The film has been remade, officially and unofficially, many times; in the United States a Western remake, credited to Kurosawa and named The Outrage, was made in 1964 with Paul Newman, Claire Bloom and Edward G. Robinson.

See also: Rashomon