JAPANESE master Akira Kurosawa is enjoying a second coming in Hong Kong.
His films are the focus of a special series on Cable Movie Channel (see below) and Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (Pearl, 9.30pm), a film not designed for the small screen, is neverthless being shown on it this evening.
This is a lesser Kurosawa, best known for his epic action dramas such as The Seven Samurai, Yojimbo and The Hidden Fortress.
On the one hand it overflows with heavy-handed messages on topics ranging from the environment to pacifism; on the other it is a glorious triumph of style over content.
The film consists of eight vignettes, beginning with a wedding that looks like a funeral and continuing with sequences about Mount Fuji in Red, a blizzard and Van Gogh (played with aplomb by Martin Scorsese). Concluding the film is Village of the Watermills, in which a traveller, passing through the title village, helps a 99-year-old man as he buries the 103-year-old 'sweet-heart' who never returned his love.
Dreams is a beautiful but difficult film.