It’s a great movie! I’ve not watched any other Akira Kurosawa movies but he’s very well acclaimed internationally. He’s made movies like Rashomon, Tora! Tora! Tora!, and Yojimbo.
On the veneer, movie is about a unique friendship of a wilderness-wanderer/hunter and a soviet military captain who’s assigned to conduct topological surveys of the certain forestal areas with few men under his command. There is a lot of natural scenery of various plains, both congested woods with trees, and open, frozen, barren river during winter. Dersu is the hunter who becomes the guide of the little company headed by the Captain since he knows the jungles pretty well. His instincts saves their lives on various occasions.
Beyond their adventures, however, the movie portrays purest of human relations and emotions. The simplicity of human characters and their bond in a peculiar setting. Dersu is one of the most unique characters I have ever seen in a movie. There is so much depth in his otherwise very simple and admirable human disposition. His logics are very simple and practical but at the same time are full of compassion that only the simple, good-natured people possess. He’s short, round faced, round bodied man in his 50’s or 60’s. He speaks a little like Yoda from Star wars: His punctuation and composition is a little unstructured. The beauty of the character is that you instantly become to know him.
Captain seems a little self-contained person. He’s not commanding or aggressive. A little quiet but well-behaved sort of person. It takes two to form an unconditional friendship which primarily started off as mutually beneficial endeavor.