Old Photo Stills (Prior to 24.09.18):

New Photo Stills (As of 24.09.18):

Set in the Asian forests of Imperial Russia around the turn of the century, Dersu Uzala tells of the relationship between a military mapping expedition and an old Tungus trapper who acts as its guide.  The soldiers sit in the winter forest at night, uncomfortable and scared. There is a rustle in the bushes and, mastering the temptation to flee, they grab the intruder. He is Dersu, a short, stocky, aging tribesman. He sits by the fire with them and when a log crackles he speaks sharply to it.  "Fire is a man," he tells them. "Water is a man, too." The captain, a sensitive intermediary between the brutal confidence of the soldier-surveyors and the mystical trapper, hires him as guide. In a series of episodes, we see Dersu, through the captain's eyes, reveal his total communication with the world he lives in.  Seeing footprints, he knows that men have been by two days before and that they are Chinese. Seeing trees with the bark off, he predicts that they will find shelter; and they do. When the party is about to leave the shelter, he insists on repairing the roof first:  for anyone else who may come along.  In one of the more memorable scenes, Dersu and the captain go out to chart a frozen lake. Kurosawa films the cold as it has rarely, if ever, been filmed. It is a visible, red-eyed enemy; visibly terrifying. The two are lost and Dersu, seeing death, is in total fear. The captain has his civilized schooling to constrain him; he also has a compass.   But when the compass ends up failing, then what?

DVD-R has Russian and English audio tracks with switchable English, Spanish and German subtitles. Approx. 143 mins.

Old Film Sample (Prior to 24.09.18):

New Film Sample (As of 24.09.18):