Japan Ikiru sits in the top 6% of Japan films on this catalog — ranked #264 of 4,579 by TMDB audience score.
Synopsis
生きる
“A big story of a little man which will grip your soul …”
Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.
Reception Benchmarks
Ranked #264 of 4,579 Japan films indexed here (94th percentile by TMDB audience score).
Rating is +1.4 points above the Japan average of 6.9/10.
Among Japan Drama productions specifically: #112 of 1,933 (top 6%).
Audience Engagement
982 audience reviews — more than 97% of Japan films in our index.
Review volume (97th percentile) outruns trending popularity (80th) — a durable title with sustained audience attention.
Titles With Overlapping Themes
Films and series that share thematic tags with Ikiru. Number on each card indicates how many keywords overlap.
Other Titles From TOHO
The 1951–1953 Japan Window
Ikiru tops the 17 Japan films we index from this three-year window. Cards below list the runners-up in descending audience order.
The 1950s Japan Landscape
Catalog density by release year across the 1950s in Japan, 76 titles in total. Highlighted year (yellow) is when Ikiru premiered alongside 5 others.
Position in Catalog
Released alongside 5 other Japan films in 1952.
The 61st Japan title from Japan we index (earliest catalogued entry: 1899).
Our Japan catalog contains 4,579 titles in total (2,908 films).
Thematic Fingerprint
Tags on Ikiru, grouped by how common each theme is across the full Asian catalog. Rare tags are more distinctive signals.
- office · 4
- bureaucracy · 3
- swing · 3
- night life · 2
- sense of life · 2
- office politics · 2
- infatuation · 2
- monotonous life · 2
- praise · 1
- playground · 1
- obsequies · 1
- wake · 1
- public works · 1
- short time to live · 1
- bureaucrat · 1
- thoughts of retirement · 1
- terminal cancer · 1
- city park · 1
- civil servant · 1
- accomplishments · 1
- office gossip · 1
- loneliness · 17
- dying and death · 10
- age difference · 8
- japan · 454
Production Details
| Primary Country | Japan |
|---|---|
| Original Language | Japanese |
| Production Companies | TOHO |
| Runtime | 2h 23m |
| Release Date | October 9, 1952 |
| IMDb | tt0044741 |