It wasn't so much a story from different points of view as it was people lying to make themselves look good, although one of the guys hearing the stories keeps commenting that people even lie to themselves. The people in this thing couldn't have been THAT self-deceiving.
Three people get out of the rain at the ruined Roshomon gate and talk about a recent murder case, A samurai and his wife were traveling, the husband on foot, the wife on sitting side saddle on a horse. A bandit (Toshiro Mifune) offers to sell the husband items he looted from a grave but jumps him, ties him up and rapes his wife. Then, depending on the version, the bandit fights to the death with the husband, the husband commits suicide or a third thing.
If you ask me, the wife was the real hero.
I once read the short story by Ryûnosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) sitting in the university library. It was fairly short if I remember correctly, just the testimony of the witnesses in the case including the victim who testified through a medium. It's surprising it could be stretched out into a 90 minute movie although they re-enacted the same events about four times.
If the film is to be believed, fake laughing was common in Japan back then.
It might make a good double feature with John Huston's Freud (1962). There was at least one sequence where we see two versions of the same event.
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