Akira Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala follows the friendship between Russian explorer Arseniev (Solomin) and Goldi hunter Dersu Uzala (Munzuk). There is no real story to speak of--it is instead a series of short adventures the two share while exploring--and there is no real end in sight, which makes the 2.5 hour runtime feel that much more painful and soporific. His use of long takes felt like wasted time in the already long and boring movie. He would have had to cut a lot more than an hour off to make this movie interesting and compelling enough for me to recommend.
The characters feel simple, superficial, and contrived. The acting isn't that great and is thankfully left mostly in the background. The cinematography was surprisingly underwhelming. Maybe I just expect too much of Kurosawa's camera, but this does not look like a Kurosawa picture. Not by a long shot. His black and white films reveal his acute eye, but in this movie I see only bland, washed-out colors reminiscent of generic 70's films. If I could go back in time and meet up with Kurosawa, I would have suggested he avoid Russian writing, because this film and The Idiot are by far his worst ones. I find little to value in this picture, and cannot imagine many people will either.IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071411/