The Rashōmon Gate

The stone marker shown below is all that remains of the Rashōmon Gate, made famous by Akira Kurosawa’s movie of 1950. How appropriate that Rashōmon or Rajōmon (literally “city walls" + "gate”), which was the great southern gate of the city of Kyoto (then known as Heian-Kyo), is now an anonymous marker in a children’s playground. The gate itself is long gone, rotted away...

The film was not a critical success in Japan but it was a commercial success. It has always been revered in Western popular culture – or at least the concept has been revered. Not enough people actually watch the movie anymore, which is a shame.

The film was based on a Ryūnosuke Akutagawa short story in 1915 and I particularly like the description in Wikipedia: "Akutagawa's use of the gate was deliberately symbolic, with the gate's ruined state representing the moral and physical decay of Japanese civilization and culture. According to one legend, it was inhabited by the demon Ibaraki Dōji."