Few classic films have had the impact that “Rashomon” had on the world cinema when it premiered at the 1951 Venice Film Festival, and when it opened in the United States the day after Christmas that same year.

Much of the movie world became familiar with and enraptured by Japanese cinema. Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa‘s career was transformed, making him a “legend” overnight, a director whose future films — including”Seven Samurai,” “Ikiru,” “Hidden Fortress,” “Yojimbo,” “Ran” and “Kagemusha” — would take on gravitas as most becapme landmarks in cinema history.

Filmmakers all over the world became fans, and Kurosawa’s movies became templates for classic Westerns, dramas and George Lucas’s sci-fi dreams of “A long time ago in a galaxy far away.”

Kurosawa muse Toshirô Mifune was turned into an “international star,” so iconic that he’d eventually become the comic obsession of a Danish film fan in the 1999 comedy “Mifune.”

And Hollywood, according to legend, realized once and for all that international features shouldn’t be overlooked among the elite films of any given year. The “Best Foreign Language Film” category was launched, eventually renamed “Best International Feature.”

In past eras, one had to haunt college or city film societies to experience Kurosawa’s compact murder mystery. A great library video collection is where I tracked first it down. Now, the free streamer Tubi is showing a collection of early Kurosawa films that lead up to and include “Rashomon,” as well as works by his contemporary Yasujirô Ozu, who gained much of his acclaim in the wake of Kurosawa’s international fame.

Tubi’s pristine print of this bucket list film reveals the stark monochromatic beauty of “Rashomon,” with perhaps 100 images among its 407 different shots worthy of being gorgeous stills hung on the walls of a museum or a film buff’s home.

The locations — the Komyoji Temple in Kyoto, and forests and river near Kyoto and Nara — vividly recreate the Heian-era of this tale of a murder, and four different points of view meant to tell us what happened.

A priest, a woodcutter and a commoner meet under the half-ruined gate to the city of Rashomon to get out of the rain. They’re all absorbed by a murder that’s happened in their midst. But the woodcutter (screen legend and Kurosawa favorite Takashi Shimura) is most shocked by “the horror.”

There was an arrest and there’s been a trial. Three different points of view were presented. But was “justice” done?

So they relate the story of the trial, and flashbacks present four distinct versions of what happened that day in the forest.

The bandit Tajômaru (Mifune) admits he killed a samurai right in front of the warrior’s wife, cackling and blustering as he does, staring straight at his unseen interrogator (the camera). But why and how?

The wife’s (Machiko Kyô) fraught testimony offers a conflicting version. A medium is consulted to contact the dead samurai (Masayuki Mori) for his testimony.

And a supposed eyewitness will offer yet another take on the killing.

Honor, greed, rape and guilt drive the conflicting accounts.

As the priest (Minoru Chiaki) ponders the morality of it all — “If men don’t trust each other, this earth might as well be hell,” (in Japanese with English subtitles), the Commoner (Kichijirô Ueda, another Kurosawa favorite) gets something like the last word with a simple piece of folk wisdom — “It’s human to lie. Most of the time we can’t even be honest with ourselves.”

Kurosawa’s technique included rare (for the era) hand-held shots that heighten the action, frantic versions of the swordfight and hand-to-hand struggle that led to the murder.

The plot, similar in structure to “Citizen Kane,” led the mere title “Rashonom” to become cinematic shorthand for any tale that relates differing points of view, related in flashbacks.

The most striking thing about the film seen nearly 75 years after its release is the startling “dabbled” light, searing shots of the sun through the trees, shadows underscoring the forest floor setting of the crime.

The film and Mifune’s legend (he stood out in “Seven Samurai” a few years later) muddle the memory and the reputation of the film among those who haven’t seen it and even those who have. The internet can amplify the misconceptions. No, Mifune wasn’t the samurai…this time.

Recent criticism written about “Rashomon” plumbs for added meaning, Kurosawa reflecting on the post war/post atomic bombed Japan so many of his films of this era directly reference. That may be a stretch, as the tale is based on a 1922 story by Ryûnosuke Akutagawa.

But the filmmaker has a reason for throwing the viewer with its image of “samurai” cut down to size, how cowardice and feminine malice and manipulation play into the story and how the characters telling the tale in the framing device of three men hiding from the rain might very well be reflecting on recent Japanese history — traditional class, gender and racial attitudes, ignominious defeat and WWII immorality and barbarism — when they weigh their opinions of “men” and mankind.

That’s very much in sync with Kurosawa’s prior “Scandal,” “Stray Dog” and “The Quiet Duel” in terms of theme.

The beauty of this enduring film, the things that make it a must-see for any person who claims to be a film lover, have nothing to do with that time-of-its-release historical resonance. It’s the striking setting, the iconic performances and stunning images artfully cut into a tale with suspense, mystery and morality folded into every scene that endure.

Seeing Kurosawa’s masterpiece again after many years had me searching for framed frames suitable for a filmlover’s decor. Maybe it will do that for you, too.

And if you haven’t seen it, you can’t be called a “cinefile” until you do.

Rating: TV-PG, violence, rape is discussed

Cast: Toshirô Mifune, Machiko Kyô, Masayuki Mori, Kichijirô Ueda, Minoru Chiaki and Takashi Shimura

Credits: Directed by Akira Kurosawa, scripted by Akira Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto, based on a story by Ryûnosuke Akutagawa. A Daiei production, now on Tubi, Amazon, et al

Running time: 1:28