The new Eclipse set Postwar Kurosawa might be more accurately titled Lesser Kurosawa. I mean, Kurosawa didn't make any pre-war movies, and he only made two or three during the war. Scandal is most famous for being released the same year as Rashomon and being infinitely inferior. It's definitely one of the director's more forgettable films. In fact, I'd probably say it's my personal least favorite so far (there are three more in this set that I haven't yet seen). But it's not that bad. Pretty good, really. Toshiro Mifune plays a pipe smoking, motorcycle riding painter who gets photographed by paparazzi hanging out with a famous singer (Yoshiko "Shirley" Yamaguchi, who also starred in Sam Fuller's House of Bamboo). A tabloid spins the story out of control, so Mifune decides to sue. He hires pathetic failure Takashi Shimura to be his lawyer, mostly because he feels sorry for him and his daughter, who has tuberculosis. But being a weak man, Shimura is susceptible to temptations from the other side of the lawsuit. There are a few very good scenes, especially the one in the bar where Shimura has a breakdown and gets the whole place to join him in a Japanese version of Auld Lang Syne. The courtroom drama is one of my least favorite genres, and while this film mostly takes place outside of that setting, the scenes that do take place there are poor. The film includes one of my most hated clichés, that of the courtroom audience bursting into laughter and/or applause during the testimonies. The final twist is lame, too. Let's just say checks are always a bad idea when you're attempting to bribe someone.
