Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro has been obsessed for half a century with "Ikiru," a classic Japanese film about an aging bureaucrat who after being diagnosed with cancer races to find meaning in what remains of his monotonous life. The Japanese-born British novelist and movie buff, 68, began to imagine a remake of Akira Kurosawa's heartbreaking masterpiece, still set in its original 1950s era, but transplanted to London. "I'm one of ...