I LIVE IN FEAR is a wonderful tragedy. Toshiro Mifune plays an old and powerful man brought low by his overwhelming fear of nuclear apocalypse. Though he has wealth, influence, a large family, and several mistresses, he is driven mad by the knowledge that all of this means nothing in the face of the H-bomb. The film calls to mind later king figures brought low in Kurosawa's filmography, such as the protagonists of HIGH AND LOW and RAN, but the story here has a quite immediate impact-- after all, we still live in the shadow of the atomic bomb. It is still a threat.
Review of I Live in Fear
