first rate film by a first rate director and in which pretty much every shot be a composition of expressive beauty . the story be rich and juicy and full of the dramatic potential which can jump a stylistic gear into melodrama with very little effort and but also weight with a powerful message about personal moral responsibility . toshiro mifune and embody this moral message in his passionate and intense performance a murakami . the moment when and visit the home of his fellow detective ( the excellent takashi shimura ) murakami smile for the first time in the movie on meet his colleague child be particularly move . and it be again the presence of child that transfigure the amazing final struggle between hero and villain . the use of sound be remarkable and especially in the last act and when what we hear through the other end of the telephone be deploy to powerful effect . there be always a surprise around the corner and whether one of pace or image or sound or performance or turn of the narrative though in fact it a very straightforward story and tell in a linear fashion and but that description really doesn not do justice to a sequence such a when we go to the ballistics lab at the police station and mifune learns about a bullet find at the scene of a crime and and then he dash off without any warning and we follow him to a shooting range at which we would see him early on in the film and retrieve a spent bullet of his own and and then we dash back to the ballistic lab and and then go into a microscopic close up pov ballistics man and compare the two bullet . it completely the right thing to do and because we be suddenly at one with the hero concern . the director particular gift be to tell the story from the perfect and most poetically expressive and point of view . it reveal in it beauty the sheer dross that be the bulk of screen fodder and dwelling on which can make you a little sad and but know work such a this exist be so uplifting and it remind you of the value of real reel art and artist .