I Live in Fear

I Live in Fear centres on Kiichi Nakajima, the elderly owner of a foundry in Tokyo who has become convinced that Japan will soon be destroyed by nuclear war. To save his family, he wants to sell the business and move everyone to Brazil. His children and other relatives do not share his fears; rather than accept the plan, they petition the domestic court to have him declared incompetent. Dr. Harada, a counselor attached to the court, is drawn into the dispute as a mediator, and he observes how Nakajima's anxiety increasingly consumes him. The film leaves open the question of whether the family's refusal to take the atomic threat seriously is the more reasonable position.

Akira Kurosawa directed the film, which was released in November 1955 and runs 103 minutes. It is the ninth of the twenty-three features he directed in chronological order, arriving between Seven Samurai (1954) and Throne of Blood (1957). Hideo Oguni and Shinobu Hashimoto wrote the screenplay, and Sōjirō Motoki produced it for TOHO. Toshirō Mifune plays Nakajima, with Takashi Shimura as Dr. Harada, Minoru Chiaki, Masao Shimizu, Eiko Miyoshi and Kyoko Aoyama among the cast of thirty-two credited performers.

The film holds a rating of 7.3 out of 10 on IMDb from around 6,100 votes, and the same rating on TMDB from a much smaller base of roughly 131 votes. A critics' rating of 6.7 out of 10 from eleven reviews places it somewhat below the audience scores.