Winner of the top prize at the 1952 Venice Film Festival and an Honorary Academy Award the same year, the film concerns a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) who witnesses a horrific series of events - an ambush, the rape of a noblewoman (Machiko Kyo) and the subsequent murder of her samurai husband (Mayasuki Mori) by a bandit (Toshiro Mifune). Yet, in the recounting of the incidents at the trial, differing versions come from all involved, thus raising questions about the reliability of subjective 'truth'.