Tokyo Olympiad

Tokyo Olympiad Tky Orinpikku is a 1965 documentary film directed by Kon Ichikawa which documents the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Like Leni Riefenstahls Olympia, which documented the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Ichikawas film was considered a milestone in documentary filmmaking. However, Tokyo Olympiad keeps its focus more on the atmosphere of the games and the human side of the athletes instead of concentrating only on the winners and the results. It is one of the few sports documentaries included in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.

Ichikawas vision of the Tokyo Olympics was controversial at the time as it was the opposite of what the Japanese government wanted and expected of the film. Ichikawa presented a film which was very much a cinematic and artistic recording of the events, more concerned with the athletes than the events, than the journalistic, historical recording that was desired by its financiers. As a result, the Japanese Olympic Committee forced Ichikawa to reedit the picture to better suit their requirements, with the final, reedited, version clocking in at 93 minutes rather than the originals 170 minutes.The film is held in very high regard and is seen, alongside Leni Riefenstahls Olympia, as one of the best films about the Olympics and one of the best sports documentaries of all time. Based onreviews collected by the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 100 of critics gave the film a positive review. ........

Source: Wikipedia