User Reviews

In 1933, in Kyoto, the academic freedom is under attack and the spoiled daughter of Professor Yagihara (Denjirô Ôkôchi), Yukie Yagihara (Setsuko Hara), is courted by the idealistic student Ruykichi Noge (Susumu Fujita) and by the tolerant Itokawa (Akitake Kôno). When the academic freedom is crushed by the fascists, Professor Yagihara and the members of the Faculty of Law resigns from their positions and Noge is arrested.

Five years later, Noge visits Professor Yagihara and his family under the custody of the now Prosecutor Itokawa and tells that he is going to China. Yukie decides to move alone to Tokyo and years later, she meets Itokawa in Tokyo and he tells that Noge is living in Tokyo. Yukie visits Noge and they become lovers.

In 1941, Noge is arrested accused of ringleader of a spy network and Yukie is also sent to prison. When she is released, sooner she learns that Noge died in prison and she decides to move to the peasant village where Noge's parents live and are blamed of being spies by the villagers. She changes her lifestyle and works hard with Madame Noge (Haruko Sugimura) planting rice and earning the respect of her mother and father-in-law. With the end of the war, freedom is restored in the defeated Japan and the flowers blossom again.

Japanese militarists used the Manchurian Incident as a pretext to press the public for support to invade the Asian mainland. Any opposing ideology was denounced as "Red". The Kyoto University Incident a.k.a. Takigawa Incident was one example of this tactic.

Using this historical event and the Japanese tradition as background, Akira Kurosawa released in 1946 the fictional "Waga seishun ni kuinashi" a.k.a. "No Regret for Our Youth" to disclose the lack of freedom in Japan of those years. I do not recall in this moment any other film of this great director with such strong female character. Further, Kurosawa seems to be influenced by Yasujirô Ozu disclosing the relationship of Yukie with her family first and with Noge's parents in the second half of his story. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Não Lamento Minha Juventude" ("No Regret for Our Youth")

I could hardly believe the actress playing the mercurial Yukie would soon be playing the serene and self-effacing Noriko in Yasujiro Ozu's home drama classics such as "Early Summer" and "Tokyo Story". Such was Setsuko Hara's versatility and malleability that she could move easily between Ozu's saintly goddess and Akira Kurosawa's passionate, reluctant heroine in this 1946 anti-war melodrama. In his first post-WWII film and the only one he ever made focused on a female protagonist, Kurosawa (with co-writer Eijirô Hisaita) has fashioned an emotionally ripe, politically charged and time-spanning story around Yukie, the daughter of a college professor, a one-time idealist who loses his job in face of the growing fascism engulfing Japan in 1933. Beautiful and skating precariously on the surface of her life, she finds herself caught between two men, both former students of her father - Noge, the son of peasant rice farmers, who becomes a secretive anti-war activist, and Itokawa, the conservative prosecutor and a symbol of the passive conformity that allowed Japan to enter a no-win war.

Yukie is excited by Noge's political passion, and they begin an intense, inevitably short-lived affair. When Noge goes to prison, she becomes politically enlightened to Japan's oppressive state, and after he dies, she decides to take his ashes to his parents and stay with them to work the fields. She endures a great deal of hardship, both from his uncaring parents and neighbors, who harass the family of a "traitor". Against the odds, Yukie endures and triumphs and despite a brief sojourn back to Kyoto, realizes her life is far more fulfilling with the peasants. Much of the plot is rather convoluted and the storyline jumpy, as the politically motivated Kurosawa seems more interested in drawing certain emotional responses from the viewer. Clarity is only a secondary consideration here, as he busily applies much of the visual flair that he would exhibit with greater impact in his later masterworks like "Rashomon" and "Seven Samurai".

Even at this early stage in his directorial career (it's only his fifth film), there are a number of his stylistic touches evident - a series of quick freeze shots to illustrate Yukie's traumatized response behind a closed door to Noge's surprise departure; the use of a slow exposure camera that causes an unearthly (and sometimes irritating) blurring effect when people are in motion; people lying in a pastoral setting staring skywards (mimicked recently by Chinese filmmakers like Yimou Zhang); Yukie's oddly exaggerated, out-of-sync piano playing; and large crowds rushing down steps in an Eisenstein-like manner. However, the film gains real emotional heft toward the end when Yukie struggles in the rice fields with Noge's mother (played almost unrecognizably by another Ozu regular, Haruko Sugimura) under Yukie's mantra of the dead husband/son, "No regrets in my life, no regrets whatsoever". It's a moving sequence which brings the story to its resonant conclusion.

Proving why she was one of Japan's favorite post-WWII film stars, Hara is superb in showing Yukie's initial flightiness and evolving political consciousness. The other performances are reasonable but hardly as memorable - Susumu Fujita as Noge, Akitake Kono as Itokawa (whom Yukie rejects at the end as unworthy to know where Noge's grave is due likely to his pro-war stance) and Denjiro Okochi as Yukie's father. The combination of the illustrious Kurosawa and the incandescent Hara is certainly compelling enough to warrant viewing.

The daughter (Setsuko Hara) of a politically disgraced university professor (Denjiro Okochi) struggles to find a place for herself in love and life, in the uncertain world of Japan leading into WWII.

One character was inspired by the real-life Hotsumi Ozaki, who assisted the famous Soviet spy Richard Sorge and so became the only Japanese citizen to suffer the death penalty for treason during World War II. It is this aspect that makes the film particularly interesting, as it reflects on the role Japan played in the world from 1933-1945.

The film as a whole is interesting for being made so soon after World War II. Clearly the budget and production value is limited, but you might expect a country ravaged by war would be too busy with other things to make movies. Not so when you have a man named Kurosawa.

In my opinion, all of Kurosawa's films from 1946 through 1966 (I've seen about 18 which are available on video) are highly recommended. They are not only good the first time through, but hold up to multiple viewings. The star of No Regrets For our Youth is Setsuko Hara, who also starred in Kurosawa's The Idiot and in several Yasujiro Ozu films including Tokyo Story and Early Summer. From what I have heard on the commentaries, she was a big, big star in Japan and it's easy to see why. She conveys a tremendous amount of emotion and generates great sympathy for her characters. She was outstanding in Tokyo Story. We also have a short appearance by Takashi Shimura as a bad guy.

I was very impressed by how the film made the characters convincing in both the first act where they are college students, and then again nearly 10 years later. The characters have changed not only in appearance but in personality and mannerisms. It made the passing years very convincing.

The film is interesting from both an historical viewpoint and as a pure drama. This was made just a year or so after the Japanese surrender in World War II, and we get a good feel for how the militaristic government in Japan was able to gain the unquestioning support of most of the population. Some things never change, do they?

Highly recommended, although if you are starting out on Kurosawa, you may want to try something from the 1955 to 66 period.

Perhaps I'm least likely among the several who've commented here about Akira Kurosawa's first post WW2 film, No Regrets For Our Youth, to recommend it so high, as despite it still being a good film it might be (for the moment) my least favorite from the director's 30-film oeuvre. It's still got something to it, but it takes a while to get there. And some of the problems with the film are even acknowledged by the director himself in his autobiography, where he mentions that the film was shot from a revised draft- done so by the insistence of censors who, while wanting a film the opposite of the militaristic propaganda that had been going on during the war, wouldn't let his full artistic vision (and, more importantly, script by him and Eijiro Hisaita) make it to the screen. Most of these are not very prominent or awful, but they keep the film from being the utmost powerful and immediate with the style alongside the content. The director's techniques, and (one of the only times in the director's career) female star make it worthwhile, though if you're not a fan of the filmmaker or much of a Japanese film buff or historian it's sluggish going.

Basically, it was hard for me to really connect with much of what was going on in the first half, which showed Japan descending through the 30s (mostly in 1933, the film's first half-hour) into a fascist state where freedom- prominently here in schools- is quelled. The quasi-love triangle that is set up between Yukie (Setsuko Hara), Noge (Sususmu Fugita), and Itokawa (Akitake Kono) is melodramatic to a fault, where Yukie starts as a bright, pretty but un-deciding girl who soon figures to start out a life for herself independently. It's after years of student revolts (which are brilliantly filmed and edited, one of the few times early in the film), where her two main male companions show their sides- Noge for freedom and independence, Itokawa for conformity and the militaristic side of things. Much of this part of the film is done in line with what I might've seen in a Hollywood melodrama of the period, nice music with some heavy dramatic points, all put alongside a political side that doesn't really work. It's only after Noge reunites with Yogie, and the two marry, and No Regrets For Our Youth really gets interesting.

Kurosawa also stated that he put a lot of "feverish energy" into the images in the last twenty to thirty minutes of the picture. This does indeed show, as Yugie- following Noge becoming the espionage story of the moment, disgracing his farmer parents- decides to purge her sadness and sacrifice herself into farming the rice fields with Noge's mother. These scenes reach that near silent film magnificence, merging Kurosawa's great eye (here aided by a later prominent collaborator with Asakazu Nakai), and Tadahi Hattori's musical score. The dramatic focus here finally become more compelling than in the weaker first half, and throughout the film this becomes clearer through maybe one of the best reasons to see the film, actress Setsuko Hara. Hara, who became one of the stock company members of Ozu's 50s films, is perfect here in the role, and even elevates some of the slower-going scenes in the film. She adds some dimension to what is at first a seemingly ignorant and content girl, and by the second half really adds well on her becoming aware of herself and what she's capable of. The film could've fared less without her, and it speaks well that even in a lesser film by the director he still casts some excellent talent.

But to say that it is a lesser film might be underscoring what is good about the picture, even memorable at times. Kurosawa still puts up some memorable shots or sequences of them, rather. Aside from the aforementioned riot scenes, there's a sequence of shots with the 'youth' early on running through the woods that makes for a nice precursor to other Kurosawa films with tightly edited, fluid shots. And one little scene where Yukie is in different poses when she hears that Noke will be leaving for a while (in the 1938 scene) that gave me a smile. And that such an imperfect and (occassionally) dated film, where not even the suggestion of an embrace or kiss can be shown (see cutaway to bag dropped on the floor in one scene), is nevertheless worth watching more-so than the best films by lesser directors says a lot of what Kurosawa can bring to the material.

The technical aspects of the film are very good. The camera used in this film uses abnormally slow shutter speeds causing the most slight (yet noticeable) distortions in movement, lending to the film a certain artistic sense that others do not have. It gives almost an eerie sense to it, and often times it seems to be somewhat drab, however: it seems to add very much to the mood of the story.

In addition to the artistic filming itself, the script truly drives the story and leads us to believe more of what Akira Kurosawa believed -- anti-Fascism, anti-Militarism, through the portrayal of events concerning Japanese imperial rule in the film. Through the eyes of Yukie we learn what it is like to be oppressed, and we learn the strength of the human spirit in its' resolute resistance to the militarism and fascism of her day; the power of the will is truly highlighted in this film, and the persistent commitment to doing good (similar to that portrayed by Watanabe in Ikiru) is very present.

The flashbacks to youth, the conjuring of memories, and the portrayal of the good times right next to the bad times, and the depth of human emotion that is revealed truly makes this film something worth watching. Some of the emotionality of the scenes (especially Yukie's emotional moments) portrays the existential angst that we all have, and her strength & perseverance represent everything we would like to have. It was a truly impacting story.

I was especially keen on the ability of Akira Kurosawa to take some of the most inward, personal moments of extreme sadness and put them into the film and, without any seeming prior explanation, the viewer is able to relate in their own way. This film highlights a philosophy of oneself against the world, and the importance of being true to one self. The message was portrayed very clearly and the end result is a masterpiece of Cinema that is greatly overlooked.

Having seen another very early Kurosawa film ("Drunken Angel," 1948) I had fairly high expectations for this title. Unfortunately, it is not even remotely as good as "Drunken Angel." Made in the immediate aftermath of the war, "No Regrets in our Youth" is quite rooted in the history of that period and it focuses much more on exorcising militarist/fascist demons than on telling a story that transcends its time and place. The line between virtue and vice is drawn more sharply drawn than in Kurosawa's mature work, and this is perhaps the film's greatest defect. This is a melodrama with good performances and a decent story line but, watching this film, it seems implausible that this is the same director who would quickly blossom and make so many tremendous movies in just a few years.

In summary, this is an interesting movie that Kurosawa "completists" will want to see, but it shouldn't be a priority for most viewers.

Obstensibly it is a story about Hun, played by Setsuko Hara, who falls in love with a spy, in a time of great turmoil and protests to combat fascism. What makes it a 10 star film is that as it goes along it becomes much more absorbing, with the characters becoming deeper in their beliefs. Here it is: Setsuko Hara does an amazing job playing the young girl. This is her first great role and I was astounded by the depth of her performance. She plays sweet, young, very pretty, but over the course of the film, which spans approximately 11 years, she falls not on hard times, but wields a meditation on personal sacrifice. Having only seen her up to now in Ozu films, I thought she was one of the greatest. Now, I know she was. She plays this character with everything. She even credibly ages over the film. You have to give Mr. Kurosawa credit also, of course, but Ms. Hara's performance makes this an incredible film, which only gets better as it goes along. This film is now part of a box set, and very highly recommended. Any complaints, which I'll mention but are very minor, are sometimes the subtitles are wrong and the film is at times blurry when there is movement (I have this film on an earlier box set, maybe these problems have been rectified). Just know that this is an incredibly absorbing film starring the excellent Setsuko Hara and directed by the great Akira Kurosawa. That alone makes this worth the price of admission, and it delivers wonderfully.

An interesting film in Kurosawa's canon: it deals explicitly with the WWII era and, alone amongst the man's films, has a woman as the protagonist (played by Ozu's favorite star, Setsuko Hara). Hara plays Yukie, the daughter of a college professor who is fired after expressing leftist ideas. This plot catalyst is based on real events, which happened in Kyoto in 1933, but the film is entirely fictional. Yukie is caught in the middle of the affection of two of her father's students, Noge and Itokawa, who both follow her father's ideals and both protest on behalf of academic freedom. The film spans from 1933 to immediately after the war, in 1945. We follow Hara's hardships as she moves to Tokyo and later on to the country, where she must toil in the rice paddies to make a living. It may be blasphemy, but I'm not the biggest Setsuko Hara fan. In Ozu's movies, I sometimes find her smug and annoying. This is especially true for her most famous performance, in Tokyo Story. She's one of the big reasons I couldn't warm to that film. I think she challenges herself more here than she does in her Ozu roles. Sure, it's a more showy performance, but what Hara shows is the skill to depict transformation. At the beginning, she's kind of a brat, and we see her become a full-fledged woman. Unfortunately, the film itself is not great. Probably for political reasons (United States censors were keeping an eye on the movie industry, of course), but also because Kurosawa might not have wanted to drag an already war-bedraggled audience through more mud than he had to, the film is often historically vague. There's some talk of Japan's actions in China, but nothing explicit talked about. Yukie notably leaves Tokyo shortly before America bombed it to oblivion, killing over 50,000 civilians in their campaign. She might be suffering in those rice paddies, but honestly she survived the war fairly easily. Kurosawa doesn't handle the whole love triangle thing very well, or maybe it's all just a little trite and boring. Both Noge and Itokawa are rather bland characters. If not for the particularly strong final third, where Hara becomes a peasant farmer, I would probably have called it the director's weakest. But Kurosawa really does shine in that part of the film (as does Hara). The melodramatic montages of toil and suffering seem much more up his alley than the earlier scenes.

There are some oddities in this movie, and they are so striking to me, yet never mentioned by anyone else, that I'm wondering if I saw a bad print.

For example, the film is based on an incident in which a professor is fired for what were apparently anti-militaristic sentiments, but it's never clear what he was actually teaching that upset the authorities. And the first scene involves someone who's been shot and I don't understand what that was all about. Perhaps if you were Japanese when the movie came out no explanation would be necessary for any of it, but I found the movie quite perplexing in the earliest parts.

On the other hand, Setsuko Hara's performance in those early scenes as the immature and mercurial Yukie is brilliant. She captures a sort of angsty youthfulness that feels very modern. She also overshadows everyone else in the movie, which at times feels like a love triangle between a rock, a twig, and a supernova.

The movie's politics are contained in a strong anti-militaristic message, yet the movie always keeps a sense of vagueness, leading to a very simple message of, it's bad to use false incidents to start wars and it's good to appreciate the people who pointed that out.

The movie is less about politics than about Yukie's personal journey. Yukie matures, but all her decisions seem tied more to her love Noge than to any firm belief in anything in particular. But I'll admit I'm judging her actions by the standards of a modern world where obeisance to men is no longer an ideal.

While many people love Hara's portrayal of Yukie in her most noble form, I found her the least interesting there, and thought the character simply lost complexity. On the other hand, these rural scenes are where Kurosawa's genius shines through most clearly, most notably in a wonderful scene of Yukie being taunted by children.

With one brilliant performance and some lovely directorial flourishes, the movie is well worth watching. But ultimately I found it rather unsatisfying.

I went to my local DVD rental store and found this early Kurosawa made just after the end of the World War 2. Curiously this film, "No regrets for my youth" was dubbed in Italian. This was kind of annoying as I like to see the films in their original language, but anyway as I've already seen so many films dubbed in English, why not Italian? Well, maybe it was the Italian dubbing, but I couldn't fail to see the similarity between "No regrets for my youth" and the neorealist films made in Italy just after the war. Coincidence? Anyway, Kurosawa was mainly influenced by the Soviet cinema.

"No regrets for my youth" tells the story of the fight of some students against the militarist regime in Japan and their different destinies throughout the years, but the film focuses mainly on Yukie, that we see in the beginning, just as a spoilt girl, flirting with revolutionary games. She's very sensitive and soon notices how alienated from reality she is. The military government is slowly tightening its iron grip and silencing the opposition. Idealism has become dangerous in Japan.

Yukie now sees what's happening. She's very passionate in whatever she does. Yukie makes no compromises, but she's no fool either. The film will describe her journey - first, the fires of adolescence when the world seems to be out there just to fulfill her wishes, then self-awareness, fight, disillusion, suffering.... She and her friends will arrive to different conclusions and tread different roads.

In a way, "No regrets for my youth" is a coming of age film, in which politics, emotion and sex play an important role. Yukie wants to find her place in the world. She's not satisfied with her life and she's not satisfied with the world in which she's living. She wants to change them. "No regrets for my youth" shows how she tries to live up to her ideals.

In "No regrets for my youth" (as I said before) we feel the influence the Soviet (and Italian) masters had on Kurosawa. We see here a young Kurosawa - more spontaneous and enthusiastic (another Kurosawa film, more or less, along the same line is "Stray Dog" that takes place in post-war Japan). The camera is used effectively to show the landscape and people. The acting is more natural. We are spared the exaggerated gestures and movements that are seen in some of his later films. Setsuko Hara who plays Yukie is an extraordinary actress. She helps the film to achieve a truly great emotional depth. Highly recommended!

Akira Kurosawa saw the replacement of one censorship regime with another at the end of the Second World War. The Imperial needs for feudal spirit and loyalty to lords was replaced by the American need for antipathy towards the militarism that had defined Japanese governmental policy for more than a decade. The whiplash from The Most Beautiful and The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail to No Regrets for Our Youth is rather stark. From a thematic point of view, it feels like two different men made the films. The actual story would almost feel more at home in Yosujiro Ozu's body of work rather than Kurosawa's, especially considering the presence of the female Japanese actress Setsuko Hara.

The film takes place over more than a decade, starting in 1933 as a university professor of law Yagihara (Denjiro Okochi), his daughter Yukie (Hara), and several of his students, most particularly Noge (Susumu Fujita) and Itokawa (Akitake Kono), walk over a mountain towards Kyoto and the shining ivory tower of the university. They sing a song of academic freedom, interrupted by gunfire and the sight of a dead soldier's body. Professor Yagihara ends up the center of a political firestorm for...reasons. The main flaw in this film is that there are a lot of generalities around the specifics of the background fights. We never find out what Yagihara says that makes him the target of the Imperial regime, losing his teaching position and sparking the student protests that dominate the early parts of the film. He's just a symbol for the idea of academic freedom.

This revolt gets led by Noge who throws himself into everything he does, but the protests are unsuccessful. Yagihara is still removed from his position, no other professor resigns in protest, and all of the students, at Yagihara's own insistence, go back to finish their degrees. All except Noge who runs off to do...something. Again, specifics are in short supply, but whatever it is he ends up in jail for it. Several years pass, Yukie learns typing and foreign languages, and Itokawa comes courting. She turns him down, outright admitting that her life with Itokawa would be boring, and Itokawa brings the recently released from prison Noge to dinner at Professor Yagihara's house. It's obvious that Noge isn't the manic young man he was before, and Yokie sees the man she loves in him. However, he disappears to China for several years more.

In the summer of 1941, Yukie and Itokawa run into each other in Tokyo. Itokawa is married with a child on the way and a public defender, and he has news that Noge has returned to Japan and runs an international policy research office in the city. She runs to Noge who is obviously hiding his real work from the world and from her, and yet they still marry. She loves him, they have a happy few month, and then Noge is arrested after he completes "a project" that the Japanese people will thank him for in ten years (supposedly some kind of sabotage on war-making ability, but, again, we get no specifics). He dies in prison, and Yukie must find solace in her newly widowed life.

This takes up the first 70 minutes or so of the film, and it's been a handsomely produced but thinly written little melodrama with social importance. It's when Yukie decides to go and visit Noge's parents that it gains a different character. I'd been wondering what the point of it all was. There seemed to be some kind of focus on the idea of Yukie wanting to find life in the midst of political discord and war that tore her country apart, but it was always ill-defined as the movie went from one story beat to another. Getting to the Noge farm, Yukie demands Noge's parents to let her help them farm the land, and she spends the rest of the movie helping Noge's mother (Haruko Sugimura) hand clear some land and make it a rice paddy. In a story that begins with people walking the crest of a natural monument, a mountain, to find the "ivory tower" of the university, it's in the working of the land that Yukie finds her self-worth. Even when the locals, who have shunned the Noge family for their son's status as a spy and traitor, destroy Yukie and Madame Noge's hard work, Yukie simply gets right back to work.

It's that extended ending of Yukie finding her place in the rice paddies of her husband's family that this movie gains the kind of focus and emotional power it seemed to always be looking for. When Itokawa comes to visit Noge's grave, Yukie tells him off for having done nothing to help her husband, telling him that Noge would not appreciate his visit.

Is this also a piece of propaganda? Most likely. Anything produced had to be approved by the office of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, so a story about how militarism is bad and working the land is good would be the sort of thing that the occupying American forces would appreciate and allow to pass. The thin nature of dealing with the student protests and Noge's treachery to the Imperial war effort, while based on some real events, feels like kowtowing to certain censorship pressures, though. Militarism = bad seems to be the extent of the intended message, and it ends up creating a narrative confusion that really should have been clearer.

In the end, though, it's a touching look at a woman finding meaning after the death of her husband. It's handsome and well-acted, and it's another move in the right direction for the young Japanese director.

This film focuses on the young woman Yukie, and her relationship with two of her male friends, Isokawa and Noge. Isokawa is weak-willed and practical while Noge is a fiery anti-war protester. Yukie is fascinated with Noge, but is unable to impress him because he is only concerned with the anti-war movement. Through the first part of the film, she follows an unfocused path, somewhat following Noge and somewhat rebelling against her parents, who would prefer she marry Isokawa and settle down. Yukie eventually settles down with Noge, and this is where the movie's pivotal point.

The title of the movie comes from Noge's statement to Yukie halfway through the film - she does not know he has continued his involvement in the anti-war movement, although he has spent time in prison and China for protesting. He tells her he has no regrets for any of his actions. Yukie doesn't quite understand until he is arrested and eventually killed for spying. Yukie has the option of returning home to her parents, but instead she finds Noge's parents and moves in with them. There she suffers hardship, sickness, and the humiliation of being known as an anti-war collaborator. The central question of the movie is why did she do this? Was she trying to "hold on" to a lost lover? Did she feel guilt over not having been more active in the anti-war movement? Was this her penance for a mis-spent youth? Even more perplexing is the way she rebukes Isokawa at the end of the film by refusing to show him Noge's grave - Isokawa had supported Japanese involvement in the war.

Perhaps the film is about the mind-state of Japan after losing the war - those who opposed the war, or who struggled through hardship to live normal lives, should value their actions in spite of the consequences. Those who supported the war deserve scorn and share in the responsibility of bloodshed.

Made right after the war and amid the American occupation, No Regrets for our Youth isn't typical considered in retrospectives of the Kurosawa masterwork cannon. Nonetheless it has the hallmarks of the future genius that would be later found in future Kurosawa masterpieces.

One of the things that makes the picture stand out from Kurosawa's filmography is having a woman as a protagonist. Unlike someone like Ozu, Kurosawa didn't often develop or explore his female charters with much consideration. But he manages to channel both the rise of nationalism and the subsequent anxieties felt between different generations in Japan at the time. What brings it all together is a powerhouse performance, just one of many, from the legendary actress Setsuko Hara. The emotion and struggle are all embodied by Hara and, while there are times when the film seems to drag on, it's all made worth it just to enjoy the sheer talent on screen. It may not be on par with the later Kurosawa masterpieces, but it's still a great example of Japanese cinema.

While not among Kurasawa's very best films, No Regrets For Our Youth is nonetheless very interesting and impressive. Marking his breakthrough as a film-maker, it is a great early effort from who I consider the king of Japanese cinema. Technically and visually, it cannot be faulted. The scenery is beautiful and epic still(though even more so in films like Seven Samurai, Kagemusha and Ran) and the camera work is sweeping and very accomplished in its technique. The script really helps to enhance the compelling and very moving story that is high on politics, romantic innocence and emotional impact, and the characters whether as students or 10 years older are convincing and emphatic throughout. Setsuku Hara is astonishing, spirited and innocent as well as managing to convey a lot of depth. Kurasawa's direction as ever is subtle while also giving credibility to the story and characters while showing a great sense of style. Overall, a great film, well worth seeing if not quite one of my favourites. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Akira Kurosawa's 5th early film, without the preceding The Best wouldn't have emphasized the greatness of this one, and greatness isn't just limited to the plot, but to Kurosawa's near-textbook images.

We see a lot of Kurosawa's early work in classical-Hollywood, and it's even starting to look "Western" to some preconceived viewers, but Kurosawa is widely recognized as a director with a deep influence on Western cinema, and it's in the way he creates his iconic plots and characters. This is evident in his trademark plotting and characterization.

Of course, classic Hollywood has also inherited some shortcomings, that is, the poor image of women presented in this movie, women can give up their subjectivity for men because of one innocent idea, even her own political tendency to change seems very hard and unprincipled, as if because the man she loves belongs to a certain political camp, she can immediately vote for that side. A BIG LIE of flat female molding.

Some of the camera techniques are still a bit stiff and not artistically pleasing, but they still don't detract much from the passive viewing experience. The active viewing experience is very rewarding, with great lighting and excellent plotting, and a kind of "Age of Awakening" (which is of course a hundred times better than that metaphor).

NO REGRETS FOR OUR YOUTH is quite different from the period pieces that made Kurosawa famous in the 1950s and 1960s. Set during WWII, the movie follows Yukie, the spoiled daughter of a liberal professor. She lives an enchanted, comfortable life, yet she is also keenly aware that her life is empty. The thought of following a conventional path (marriage to a steady breadwinner, children) bores her. She is drawn to a social activist named Noge, whose life on the edges of society is dangerous but seemingly thrilling-- and from there, she is taken from her gilded bourgeois life and thrown into the world to find a way to live her life consciously and with purpose.

Kurosawa's oeuvre is generally chided for being too male-focused, but in Yukie, his only female protagonist, he gives us one of his finest heroes. Her transformation over the course of the movie is brilliantly played by Setsuko Hara. Her mannerisms and expressions allow her character to age credibly, more so than other movies I can think of where the audience watches a character age over many years. Yukie is idealistic, but also practical and steadfast.

As a film, NO REGRETS is executed with flair: Kurosawa has yet to develop his own signature style fully at this point in his career. I found a lot of debt to Soviet and European art cinema on display here, especially in the montages. He is not yet the master filmmaker he would become, but this is an astonishing early effort, heartfelt and assured. But it would be a shame to only see this movie as a stepping stone towards better things, for it is a fine piece of work in its own right.

Set against a backdrop of political issues, the first half of this film is really a melodrama about a young woman who is rather immature and spends a good deal of her time feeling sorry for herself. One man in her life has strong feelings for her, but she just taunts and teases him because she views him as weak and unexciting. In juxtaposition, the man she gushes over is too busy immersing himself in political activism to have time for romance.

This plot is not new or innovative. I found it to be boring, but then around the halfway mark, the story takes a turn and winds up ultimately rewarding, at least for me. Bluntly put, it goes from wimpy to wow. I won't reveal more to as not to include any spoilers in my review.

If you're a real buff of 1940s Japanese films, this one is worth the watch. If you're new to them, you're better off skipping this. Also, it's about 10 to 15 minutes too long.

This is a very important film for Kurosawa and expresses the deep concern felt by Japanese liberals when the military took over Japan in the 1930's. The Thought Police arrested anyone who did not totally support the military and the War in China. People were afraid to express their thoughts even to close friends.

Thought control was complete in Japan and the Japanese people believed they were winning the war until the very end. All the news sources available only told of great victories even though great defeats were taking place.

It was a terrible time for liberals until the Americans occupied Japan. They quickly shut down the Thought Police and allowed freedom of thought and expression for the first time in over a decade. That is what Kurosawa is telling us about.

When I watched this film on DVD for the first time, I thought it was spoilt by the pro-Occupation Authorities propaganda which Kurosawa lays onto the film with a trowel. The initial (written) statement about Japanese militarism, the occasional political statements on the same theme by Noge during the film, the portrayal of Noge (a man who however much I might agree with his ideas, was undoubtedly a traitor to his country), were all no doubt exactly what the Occupation Authorities wanted the Japanese people to hear. Whether the Japanese people wanted to hear them is much more doubtful; and more doubtful still is that they (as the film suggests) agreed. Which was a pity, I thought, because there's a good film here trying to get out.

However, it's my custom to watch films twice when I can, and after a second viewing my opinion has changed somewhat. The propaganda is still intrusive, and it doesn't improve the film one bit, but it's localised to the beginning, the middle, and a few utterances in between, and it's possible to wince and concentrate on the story, particularly the final half hour or so, in which propaganda is (almost) dispensed with. Yukie's change from city girl to villager is shown brilliantly by her clothes, the way she drinks, and the tan on her face (though the tan has mysteriously disappeared when she wears Western clothes again at the very end of the film, so perhaps it was just dirt). And the effect of the villagers whisperings on her is shown in the same way as the similar scene in Hakuchi where Kameda gets the same treatment from horses' bridle bells. It's possible to see Kurosawa experimenting with techniques he would use in later films, something which is itself interesting.

A final note on Setsuko Hara's performance as Yukie: a number of people have commented on this, and I have to say that it's one of the best I've seen from her (obviously, I haven't seen them all), along with those in Naruse's Meshi and Yama no Oto. We know her best in the West from her work with Ozu (at least, I did), but I can't help thinking that Ozu doesn't get the best from her. She plays pretty much the same character in every Ozu film I've seen her in, only the names and situations change - the mother in Late Autumn is the daughter in Late Spring, just several years older, and widowed and with a daughter of her own (and with a different name). For those who aren't sure just how good she was, this is worth watching.