Movie

The Sands of Kurobe

1968 · 196 min

A long, serious, slow-building drama of men against rock and time, weighed down by quiet personal grief.

Overview: Kitagawa is an engineer charged with construction of a gigantic tunnel through the Japan Alps for the transportation of equipment in the building of the massive Kurobe Dam. The tunnel crosses an earthquake fault and Kitagawa is beleaguered not only by cave-ins and flooding, but by strife between management and the workers's union. Adding to Kitagawa's stress is the knowledge that as his attention is pulled inexorably toward the tunnel construction, his youngest daughter is dying from leukemia.

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How it feels

Written by AI. It can be wrong.

Tone: earneststrength 3 of 3
tensestrength 2 of 3
melancholicstrength 2 of 3
bleakstrength 1 of 3
Pacing: slow-burn, 1 of 4, from slow-burn to relentless
Attention: engaged, 3 of 4, from background-friendly to demanding
Themes: work
family
grief
survival
class
Places: countryside
workplace
Era: period
Audience: adult
Form: true story
Content intensity: Gore none
Language mild
Violence mild
Sex none

All scales, 0 to 10

Scales, 0 to 10
Scale	Value	0 to 10
Action	3
Horror	1
Humour	1
Realism	8
Romance	1
Tension	6
Darkness	6
Complexity	6
Emotional weight	8

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Where to watch in the UK

No UK streaming, rental or purchase options are known.

Streaming data from JustWatch.TMDB

Details

Genres: drama
Directed by: Kei Kumai
Written by: Kei Kumai, Masato Ide
Starring: Toshirō Mifune, Yūjirō Ishihara, Osamu Takizawa, Takashi Shimura, Shūji Sano, Jūkichi Uno, Ryūtarō Tatsumi, Isao Tamagawa
Music: Toshirō Mayuzumi
Cinematography: Mitsuji Kanau
Runtime: 196 min
Country: Japan
Languages: Japanese

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The Sands of Kurobe

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