Fyodor Dostoyevsky's essential quality, the suffering for mankind that comes from the deepest compassion, is also at the heart of Kurosawa's greatest films. Kurosawa obviously poured his soul into his adaptation of Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, which translates very well to a setting in the snow country of Hokkaido. The visuals are stunning, and Kurosawa's fidelity to the characterizations and themes of his “favorite author” is almost fanatic. An ingenious scenario finds Myshkin personified as Kameda, an ex-soldier who narrowly escaped death and is now given to practicing total selflessness in his relations with his fellow men: in the role of “the idiot,” Masayuki Mori conveys the sentiments of gentility and goodness with the proper degree of obsessiveness. As the wild, uncouth Akama (Rogozhin), Toshiro Mifune is well-cast, and Setsuko Hara gives a poignant performance as Taeko (Natasha), the lost, desperate woman who brings on tragedy and madness for the two men.