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Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780780030084
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 0780030087
Label: Criterion
Manufacturer: Criterion
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Criterion
Region Code: 1
Release Date: January 10, 2006
Running Time: 150 minutes
Sales Rank: 25909
Studio: Criterion
Theatrical Release Date: January 22, 1963
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com essential video:
The Bad Sleep Well tells the story of corruption at the highest levels of Japanese business and its tragic consequences. Though flawed by a tedious introductory sequence and by an ending that seems out of sync with the story, it is a fascinating movie and the middle part is especially exciting.
Japanese legend Toshiro Mifune plays Koichi Nishi, the seemingly stoic bridegroom who is trying to get ahead by marrying the boss's daughter, Kieko (Kyoko Kagawa), who was crippled as a girl. The bride's brother, in a shocking display, exposes the groom's motives during his wedding toast and threatens his new brother-in-law with death if he disappoints his sister. But Nishi is not who we think. He was born the illegitimate son of the man who Kieko's father, Iwabuchi (Maysayuki Mori), manipulated into suicide. Now Nishi wants revenge for his father's death. As Nishi slowly destroys Iwabuchi's life, he makes the fatal error of falling in love with his wife, who already loves him. Their unconsummated marriage stands between these two like a palpable pillar of stone. But just when we think the stone has been tossed aside by love, Iwabuchi finds out who his son-in-law really is.
Shot in black and white, this film falls just short of being brilliant. Mifune is amazing in his portrayal of this complex man who lets his father's past destroy his own future, and Maysayuki Mori's performance as the evil Iwabuchi is understated but nonetheless chilling. --Luanne Brown
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Great
Akira Kurosawa's 1960 black and white film, The Bad Sleep Well (Warui Yatsu Hodo Yoku Nemuru), is often compared to William Shakespeare's Hamlet, but it's an inapt comparison for, while Shakespeare's play has a higher sense of poetry, Kurosawa's film has far more relevance, realism, and complexity, even if, like Hamlet, it's a high class melodrama. The film was written by Kurosawa and four collaborators- Shinobu Hashimoto, Eijirô Hisaita, Ryuzo Kikushima, and Hideo Oguni. Because it has Shakespearean pedigree, and is not set in medieval Japan, this film has not gotten its proper due, in comparison with the classics that Kurosawa made earlier in his career, such as Rashomon, Ikiru, and Seven Samurai. But, it should, for, despite its melodramatic bent, and film noir roots- heightened by Masaru Sato's wonderful soundtrack, which alternates the darkness of certain moments with almost carnivalesque music, the film is superbly paced and well written, for within the film's opening sequences at a corporate wedding, fully Westernized with a Here Comes The Bride rendition, covered by the jackal-like press- reminiscent of the paparazzi in the prior year's Federico Fellini masterpiece La Dolce Vita, ready to pounce on any irregularity, because of a budding scandal, and the subsequent brilliant montage of newspaper headlines that puts those used by Hollywood in pre-World War Two gangster films to shame, the bulk of the film's narrative setup is displayed, and allowed to unravel for the next two hours, albeit ... Read More
Rating: - The Bad Sleep Well
Based on a story by Ed McBain, this modern-day variation on "Hamlet" is a tense, complex psychological drama, with star Mifune (who was Kurosawa's charismatic, recurring leading man well into the sixties, here barely recognizable in glasses) turning in an unusually restrained performance. While succeeding more as chilling revenge tale than unfiltered romance, the film hooks you regardless. There's very little chance "Bad" will put you to sleep!
Rating: - A great Hamlet Adaptation
After viewing Ran my initial reaction was simple awe. I had never before seen such a stunning epic, and never had the story of King Lear been adapted so poetically and viscerally. There has not been a film since that has come close to the way I perceived Ran, I was simply blown away.
After viewing a few more Kurosawa pictures I came upon one entitled 'Throne of Blood'. While I felt it was defiantly one of Kurosawa's stronger pictures, it also seemed to lack the Shakespearian atmosphere that Ran had. I liked it, but felt it was closer to The Seven Samurai as oppose to Ran.
Then, later still, I came upon The Bad Sleep Well. I expected something similar to Throne of Blood, with Kurosawa's 50s-60s atmosphere rather then his 80s-90s atmosphere. Well it turned out that I was wrong. The Bad Sleep Well is easily Kurosawa's most underrated picture, overshadowed by Yojimbo & Sanjuro afterward, and The Hidden Fortress before. The Bad Sleep Well however, does not take the same ambiance as those pictures, rather it shows a flash of Kurosawa's elderly genius from such pictures as Kagemusha and Ran(not to undermine his early genius, its just that the film feels much like one of his later pictures). I won't bother going into detail on the story, as most are already familiar with Shakespeare's Hamlet, and American film-noir; but what I will tell you however, is how well it adapts to the story(s), and that its narrative really flows at a great pace.
The Bad Sleep Well features ... Read More
Rating: - An interesting Kurosawa film about corporate corruption, with a fine performance by Toshiro Mifune
Despite many good elements, The Bad Sleep Well is one Kurosawa movie that didn't involve me much, either emotionally or in the story telling. I've always found it hard to take seriously movie stories where the villain, either an individual or an organization, is so all-powerful and so competent that he or it simply can't be touched. Here we have a tale of massive corporate corruption in post-war Japan which is led by an unseen evil which can arrange not just for suicides, blackmail, murder and the cover ups, but for all those messy details like cleaning up afterwards and immaculate body disposal. Bureaucratic self-sacrifice is the expected behavior of subordinates, when necessary. As one character says, "You don't understand bureaucrats. A good official never implicates a superior, no matter what the cost." For me, the pervasive success of the bad ones doesn't lead to great drama or to wrenching, paranoid discovery, but just to melodrama,
Adding to the distance I felt is the behavior of the...well, not hero, exactly. Protagonist? Nishi (Toshiro Mifune) is so consumed by revenge that he unhesitatingly takes upon himself the role of judge and executioner, destroying many of those around him who are either innocent of anything other than loving him or who are small potatoes in the schemes of corruption. And the Mr. Bigs? Nishi tells us "Even now they sleep soundly, with grins on their faces. I won't stand for it! I can never hate them enough!" Do the ends justify the means? I seldom think so, ... Read More
Rating:  - a film about corruption and revenge. another Kurosawa classic!
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.
"The Bad Sleep Well" known is Japan as "Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru" or "The Worse You Are the Better You Sleep" is about a business executive who is seeking revenge on the people in his company who murdered his father. The film is a modern adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet and Shakespearean elements are common in Akira Kurosawa's films. The film also documents the rampant corruption in big corporations which is very common today and some have said that the film was ahead of it's time.
The Criterion DVD has a theatrical trailer and a documentary on the film's production as special features.
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