Overview
Based on a 1956 television feature on Japan’s national network, NHK, this is one of Uchida’s rarest films. A socially conscious drama with a contemporary backdrop, Dotanba focuses on the attempts to rescue a group of trapped miners. The title is a figure of speech — (essentially “last minute” or “eleventh hour”) — that refers to a situation of peril. The film boasts a script co-written by Uchida and Akira Kurosawa’s frequent screenwriter, Shinobu Hashimoto, and stars Kurosawa’s frequent star Takashi Shimura.
Cast
- Takashi Shimura as Banno
- Shinjirō Ehara as Yamaguchi
- Kokuten Kōdō
- Eiji Okada as Shimano
- Eijirō Tōno
- Chōko Iida as Kane Ishigaki
- Jiro Takagi as Newspaper Reporter A
- Yoshi Katō as Sunaga
- Shin Tonomura as Kusaka
- Yoshifumi Tachibana as Yui