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The Rashomon (羅生門 or 羅城門 Rajomon) was formerly the grandest of the two city gates of the Japanese city of Kyoto during the Heian period. Built in 789 AD, it was 106 feet wide by 26 feet high, with a 75-foot stone wall and topped by a ridge-pole. By the 12th century it had fallen into disrepair and became an unsavoury place, with a reputation as a hideout for thieves and other undesirable characters. People would abandon corpses and unwanted babies at the gate.The ruined gate is the central setting – and provides the title – for Akira Kurosawa's famous 1950 film, Rashomon, which is based on a short story by Akutagawa Ryunosuke. Ryunosuke'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.
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