The Bad Sleep Well (Kurosawa, 1960): Mini-Film Review

Thanks to a Criterion Collection half-off sale, I ended up with The Bad Sleep Well, the first film by the director's Kurosawa Production Company, and starring the divine Toshiro Mifune. At 150 minutes, I watched the film over a couple sittings, but what a great film. The protagonist's righteous, unbridled thirst for revenge is half of the story, while a romantic relationship composes the other -- the result is, expectedly, a crisis of interests: characters either carry out, prevent, or become victims of the protagonist's desires. Again, Kurosawa is the master of the partial resolution: nothing turns out exactly as (we) hope/d.