Dodes'ka-den (1970) on Netflix
On the edge of a Tokyo rubbish dump, Roku-chan drives an imaginary trolley, reciting dodeska-den. Ryotaro, a hairbrush maker, raises the children his wife Misao conceived with other men.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb7.3/108,467 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes73%
Trailer
Plot summary
In a shantytown on a Tokyo rubbish dump, several lives unfold in overlapping episodes. Roku-chan, a boy whom locals and children from outside call trolley freak, keeps to a set route and schedule as an imaginary trolley driver, repeating the refrain dodeska-den. His mother Okuni worries he is mentally challenged. Ryotaro makes hairbrushes and supports the many children his unfaithful wife Misao conceived in other affairs. Masuda and Kawaguchi, two drunken day laborers, trade wives for a night and go back to their own the next morning. Hei, a bleak man, watches Ocho do his household chores; she appears to be his former wife. Shima flies into a rage when friends criticize his bullying wife, saying she has always stood by him. A beggar and his son shelter in an abandoned car; the father dreams of a grand house.
Cast
- Toshiyuki Tonomuraas Taro Sawagami
- Keiji Furuyamaas Mr. Matsui
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Dodes'ka-den (1970)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Akira Kurosawa mortgaged his own house to finance Dodes'ka-den, but the film grossed less than its budget, leaving him with large debts and dim job prospects at sixty-one. A year later, on December 22, 1971, he attempted suicide.
- Dodes'ka-den was made possible when Kurosawa formed the Club of the Four Knights production company (Yonki-no-kai) with fellow directors Keisuke Kinoshita, Masaki Kobayashi and Kon Ichikawa; it was the four men's first and only production together.
- Script supervisor Teruyo Nogami said she had never seen Kurosawa as quiet and undemanding on set as he was on Dodes'ka-den. Where "the old Kurosawa" would have lost his temper over Junzaburō Ban's repeated fluffs in a nine-minute single-take scene, he gently said "let's try it again" and praised Ban when the shot was done.
- Filming on Dodes'ka-den took only 27 days, finishing two months ahead of schedule, whereas Kurosawa's previous film, Red Beard, had been in production for two years.
- Kamatari Fujiwara was known for not being able to memorise his lines, so on an eight-minute scene with Atsushi Watanabe, Kurosawa had Teruyo Nogami feed him verbal prompts; her voice was hard to remove from the final tape.
- The drawings covering the walls of Rokuchan's house were first drawn by Kurosawa at home, but he thought they looked too grown-up and got schoolchildren to draw them instead.
- Dodes'ka-den was Akira Kurosawa's first colour film, and he had worked with only a handful of its actors before, among them Kamatari Fujiwara, Atsushi Watanabe, Kunie Tanaka and Yoshitaka Zushi.
