The time background of this film is relatively vague. Anyway, it is a period drama, or it can be used in any era of modern Japanese history spanning hundreds of years. It can be seen that oppression and exploitation are common. The director reflected in the opening subtitles that it was a tribute to Gorky's novel, but the class struggle in old Russia and Japan's national conditions were two different things. At least I didn't see the root cause of the low-level in the film. Find the reason - Needless to say, petty theft, most people are addicted to alcohol, unkind and insatiable for the rich. Of course, we can say that the upper class occupied high-quality production materials, resulting in uneven distribution and disparity in grades, and the director did not explain and discuss too much at this level. So this film has evolved into a group of people at the bottom of society who have no hope in life anyway, and we simply give up on ourselves. They do not reflect on the reasons for the current situation, nor do they have the slightest willingness to resist and replace the superstructure. It is difficult to tell whether the director is sympathizing with and pitying this type of people, or whether he is using the unsightly tragic situation of this type of people to wake up one or more layers of class. Interestingly, the interior scenes of this film were all filmed in a shanty built on a pit that is more than ten meters below the ground. Many scenes can be regarded as stage plays. The transformation of space and time is very limited, and the conflict does not exceed the pit, There is not a single scene on the ground, and the word "despair" is mentioned throughout. The best scene is at the end of the film. After a few days of farce, everyone sings and dances for no reason. The choreography is very interesting. The simple musical instruments are matched with the appropriate shooting, which is very lively and lively. It's a pity that it was finally disrupted by the accident of another resident living in the shanty town. Facts once again prove how much Kurosawa likes Russian literary topics, but unfortunately the story is not the same when it is moved to Japan.
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