Product Description

Kurosawa's remarkable film, his only produced and financed outside of Japan, is an extraordinary tale of friendship and survival, based on the memoirs of Russian explorer Vladimir Arseniev. In the harsh environs of the Siberian frontier, an expedition led by Arseniev encounter the nomadic Goldi tribesman Dersu Uzala, who agrees to guide the men through the vast uncharted wilderness. Although initially considered by the group as little more than a savage, Dersu's skill, courage and spiritual wisdom soon earn their respect and admiration, as well as instilling in them a new-found compassion for the natural world. Bearing all the unmistakable hallmarks of the great cinema master, Kurosawa's Oscar-winning classic is a visually stunning humanist epic.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34713 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-02-26
• Rating: Universal, suitable for all
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: Russian
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 144 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
During an unusual chapter in the career of director Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon), the filmmaker went to Russia because he found working in his native Japan to be too difficult. The result was this striking 1975 near-epic based on the turn-of-the-century autobiographical novels of a military explorer (Yuri Solomin) who met and befriended a Goldi man in Russia's unmapped forests. Kurosawa traces the evolution of a deep and abiding bond between the two men, one civilised in the usual sense, the other at home in the sub-zero Siberian woods. There's no question that Dersu Uzala (the film is named for the Goldi character, played by Maxim Munzuk) has the muscular, imaginative look of a large-canvas Soviet Mosfilm from the 1970s. But in its energy and insight it is absolutely Kurosawa, from its implicit fascination with the meeting of opposite worlds to certain moments of tranquillity and visual splendour. But nothing looks like Kurosawa more than a magnificent action sequence in which the co-heroes fight against time and exhaustion to stay alive in a wicked snowstorm. For fans of the late legend, this is a Kurosawa not to be missed. --Tom Keogh