Akira Kurosawa's Scandal is a rather middling film, I am disappointed to say. The plot follows a tabloid scandal alleging a love affair between painter Aoe (Mifune) and singer Saijo (Yamaguchi). Furious, Aoe threatens to sue the tabloid's publisher (Ozawa) and hires attorney Hiruta (Shimura) to help. But Hiruta's gambling addiction compromises their case. While the movie is more than a simple legal drama, it fails to satisfy on that basic level. After watching so much Boston Legal lately, my expectations for the genre have risen exponentially. And Scandal fails to meet them.
On a technical level, there is little to impress. I remember next to nothing of the cinematography and editing. Even the performances by Mifune and Shimura felt a bit like staged overacting given the rest of the piece. Where Kurosawa excels is in the human drama. The heart of the movie is Hiruta's relationship with his dying daughter. The man's vice fills him with guilt and he has no idea how to express it appropriately. All he can do is call himself a worm and beg for his daughter's mercy. It is a sentimental tale that ends ultimately in redemption, but not without a heavy dose of sadness along the way. As I said of One Wonderful Sunday, Scandal is not as good as Kurosawa's more famous works, so you should wait to watch it until after you've seen the rest of his oeuvre.IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042958/