Takashi Shimura portrays Kanji Watanabe, an isolated, inward city office clerk who discovers he has stomach cancer and little time left on earth. With a compelling, radical narrative structure, Akira Kurosawa depicts Watanabe's last months and then how his final decisions have affected those left behind. This film is one of the Japanese master's darkest, yet most life-affirming works. A powerful, thought-provoking drama about a petty bureaucrat who discovers that he is dying of cancer. Coming to the realization that his life has been a meaningless quest for following petty company rules, he tries to create one thing of lasting worth.