I could say that it's Kurosawa's greatest (which it is), I could say that Takashi Imura, the star, gave the greatest performance in all cinema history (second only to Chaplin's in the closing moments of City Lights), or I could say that the structure of the script was astonishingly innovate (which it was) - but the thing this film did for me was to save my life in the sense that before I saw it, I never realized how valuable my life was, the things that I could do with my life, and the same is true for all living humans. Kurosawa's contribution to film with Ikiru was much much greater than making an astonishing motion picture, as the title says 'To Live', he has taught me what it means to live and brought newer meaning to every day I have left to live and Kurosawa himself lives on in the soul of everyone who has seen and been so deeply touched by Ikiru.
Review of Ikiru
