British Universities Film & Video Council

moving image and sound, knowledge and access

Warui Yatsu Hodo Yoku Nemuru

Alternative title
The Bad Sleep Well
Synopsis
Kurosawa directed three adaptations from Shakespeare. Two were recreated as samurai movies: Macbeth became THRONE OF BLOOD (1957), and King Lear inspired his last major film, the epic RAN (1985). THE BAD SLEEP WELL (1960) comes between the two and is the least-known. Kurosawa’s Hamlet is ‘a scathing excoriation of post-war Japanese corruption and a masterly demonstration of noir’ (The Guardian, 2019).

Tony Howard in his essay ‘Shakespeare’s Cinematic Offshoots’ in Russell Jackson ‘Shakespeare on Film’ (Cambridge: CUP, 2000), p301 believes the baroque comic details bring the film closer to The Revenger’s Tragedy.
Language
Japanese
Country
Japan
Medium
Film
Technical information
Black-and-white / Sound
Year of release
1960
Duration
151 mins

Credits

Director
Akira Kurosawa
Producer
Akira Kurosawa; Tomoyuki Tanaka
Cinematographer
Ryuzo Kikushima; Yuzuru Aizawa
Screenplay
Akira Kurosawa; Eijiro Hisaita; Hideo Oguni; Shinobu Hashimoto
Music
Masaru Sato
Production Design
Yoshiro Muraki
Cast
Toshiro MifuneKoichi Nishi (Hamlet)
Masayuki MoriVice-President Iwabuchi (Polonius)
Kyoko KagawaKeiko Nishi (Ophelia)
Kamatari FujiwaraAssistant Chief wada (Rosencrantz)
Ko NishimuraContract Officer Shirai (Guildenstern)
Takashi ShimuraMoriyama (Reynaldo)
Takeshi KatoItakura (Horatio)
Tatsuya MihashiTatsuo Iwabuchi (Laertes)

Additional Details

Production type
Fiction Films
Plays
Hamlet
Subjects
Drama
Keywords
film adaptations; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); Shakespeare on film; Film noir; corruption

Production Company

Name

Kurosaw-Toho

Distributor

Name

BFI Distribution

Email
bookings.films@bfi.org.uk
Web
http://www.bfi.org.uk/distribution External site opens in new window
Phone
020 7957 8938/8935
Address
21 Stephen Street
London
W1P 2LN
Notes
The British Film Institute is a specialist non-theatric rental distributor of international fiction and documentary films on 16mm and 35mm film, as well as VHS and DVD video. The holdings are so vast that only those titles available on DVD and HD Digital are listed in full on the website, so it is worth enquiring about specific titles that might only be available for hire in other formats. The BFI has partnered with on-line platforms such as lovefilm and blinkbox to deliver a selection of films to buy or rent in digital format, and others are streamed free of charge on the BFI’s YouTube channel or as dowloadable clips on the Creative Archive section of the BFI’s own website.

Distributor (Sale)

Name

Retail outlets

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