There's an older Akira Kurosawa movie that Dodes'ka-den feels a little similar to. The Lower Depths also feels like a slice-of-life movie about working-class people and the challenges of getting by, but Dodes'ka-den did the premise in a way that I found more engaging. There are multiple characters whose plots are generally self-contained, though in Dodes'ka-den, they're all shown to live in the same area. Naturally, some characters are more interesting than others, but there weren't any sub-plots I could call terrible.
I also can't say it begins as a fun or light-hearted movie, but the emotional stuff did still sneak up on me. It's not a depressing or hopeless movie, but it's pretty real at points, and therefore feels very sad at times. Even sadder is the behind-the-scenes story about how the reception to this movie affected Kurosawa. I'm surprised it was ever widely disliked or seen as inferior to his other movies in the first place. It's not one of his very best, but it's nowhere near his worst, and I think overall, it's probably one of his most underrated.
I also can't say it begins as a fun or light-hearted movie, but the emotional stuff did still sneak up on me. It's not a depressing or hopeless movie, but it's pretty real at points, and therefore feels very sad at times. Even sadder is the behind-the-scenes story about how the reception to this movie affected Kurosawa. I'm surprised it was ever widely disliked or seen as inferior to his other movies in the first place. It's not one of his very best, but it's nowhere near his worst, and I think overall, it's probably one of his most underrated.