Reparto principal:
Minoru Chiaki ... Tahei
Kamatari Fujiwara ... Matakishi
Toshirô Mifune ... General Rokurota Makabe
Misa Uehara ... Princesa Yuki
Susumu Fujita ... General Hyoe Tadokoro
Toshiko Higuchi ... Esclava
Takashi Shimura ... General Izumi Nagakura

Fotografía:
Kazuo Yamasaki

Música original:
Masaru Satô

Montaje:
Akira Kurosawa

Palabras clave:

1500s, Action, Adventure, aristocrat, Comedy, Costume Adventure, Daring Rescues, escort, Feud, Gold, guardian, hero, Heroic Mission, homecoming, Jidai Geki, Katana Sword, Light, on-the-road, Princess, Rousing, Samurai, Samurai Film, Samurai Warrior, Suitable for Children, swashbuckler, swordmaster, villain, Violence, Visceral, war, weapons

Reparto principal:
Toshirô Mifune ... Taketori Washizu
Isuzu Yamada ... Asaji Washizu
Minoru Chiaki ... Yoshiaki Miki
Takashi Shimura ... Noriyasu Odagura
Chieko Naniwa ... Espíritu del bosque

Fotografía:
Asakazu Nakai

Música original:
Masaru Satô

Montaje:
Akira Kurosawa

Palabras clave:

Based On Play, Betrayal, Bleak, Blood, Crime Gone Awry, Drama, Fog, Forceful, Forest, Ghost, Grim, Imagery, Jidai Geki, Literate, Macbeth, Middle Ages, murder, Not For Children, Period Film, Prophecy, rebel, revenge, Rise and Fall Stories, Samurai, Samurai Film, Shakespeare's Macbeth, Spirit, Stylized, Surreal, Tragedy, tyrant, Violence, warrior, William Shakespeare

Well, rather belatedly, we finally watched the whole thing.

Fiona: "He's one of my favourite filmmakers."

Me: "You've seen TWO of his films. And five minutes of this one."

Fiona: "Yeah."

I knew just what she meant. Fiona is a huge fan of KWAIDAN (which should really be kaidan -- Kobayashi's films have suffered considerable retitling in the west). I admire it enormously -- it's as beautiful a film as was ever shot and designed -- but I don't find it too dramatically compelling or scary. But I was utterly wowed by SEPPUKU (which Criterion have decided to call HARA KIRI), an excoriating attack on the samurai ethos, and what feels like an incredibly bold film to have come from a film culture like Japan's. Reading up on how the young Kobayashi did his best to resist his nation's plunge into militarism in WWII deepened my respect and understanding for him. He's somebody whose life story really feeds into and illuminates his work.

SAMURAI REBELLION (Jôi-uchi: Hairyô tsuma shimatsu -- I don't know what that means but I doubt it's been translated literally, and the IMDb lists several alternative English titles) is a Kobayashi from 1967 that confirms the man's mission: to tell the stories history has omitted to record. In this and SEPPUKU, Kobayashi makes a point of telling us that his characters will be not only defeated but erased from the record. We will inherit the myth of the honourable samurai code simply because all other stories have been bloodily suppressed.

This movie's ending isn't quite such a spectacular downer as the earlier film's, which in a way makes it seem a lesser work. But neither film is actually depressing, despite the bleakness of their message and the violence of their action. Kobayashi's style is hard, beautiful and incisive, using strikingly modern sharp push-in movements on his characters, Langian cutting to illustrate the cause-and-effect unfolding of the plot, and sometimes wild flourishes like theatrical lighting changes, freeze-frames and jump-cuts. Conversations between sitting or kneeling characters on the floor, an essential feature of Japanese period drama, have unique edge and ZING in Kobayashi's work, as he holds his edits back until they really count. The intensity and grace of the technique prevents the film from becoming depressing, in the same way Shakespeare's poetry prevents his tragedies from ever acquiring a deadening gloom (unless Peter Brook is on hand to steamroller them into submission).

The plots of these Samurai tragedies are genuinely Shakespearian, it seems to me. They also relate to the classic western. Unlike any modern action movie, both films build to an inevitable outburst of violent conflict, but tend to avoid decorating the path with action set-pieces. You have to wait for that promised samurai rebellion. While it's hard to envisage a pacifist action film, what Kobayashi does with his stories almost amounts to that: as he slowly builds the sense of injustice, tension rises to the point where violence comes to seem essential, the only human response to the oppression on view. And at the same time, the violence harms only the underlings and the innocents: in the long term, it achieves nothing, and is destined not even to be remembered.

With Toshiro Mifune AND Tetsuyo Nakadai, the film has plenty of iconic honourable bloodshed stature, but at the same time undercuts its genre superbly, making it simultaneously a samurai film for those who don't like samurai films, and one for those who do.

*

Surprisingly, script collaborator Shinobu Hashimoto also worked with Kurosawa on projects such as THE SEVEN SAMURAI which, though they include some knocking of the samurai myth, ultimately reinforce it.

*

There doesn't seem to be any more Kobayashi available in the west for us to groove to. Criterion's imprint of his epic three-parter THE HUMAN CONDITION is out of print and retails for exhorbitant prices second-hand. If anybody wants to burn me a copy I will love them madly.

Reparto principal:
Takashi Shimura ... Kanji Watanabe
Miki Odagiri ... Toyo Odagiri
Nobuo Kaneko ... Mitsuo Watanabe
Yûnosuke Itô ... Novelista

Fotografía:
Asakazu Nakai

Música original:
Fumio Hayasaka

Palabras clave:
Alcohol, bar [pub], Battling Illness, Buddhist, Bureaucracy, Bureaucratic Inaction, Cancer, Cathartic, Children, City Hall, Compassionate, Death, Deliberate, Deputation, Drama, Existentialism, Father Son Relationship, Finding The Inner Child, government-official, Japan, Journey of Self-Discovery, legacy, Lyrical, meaning-of-life, Medical Drama, Mephistopheles, Office, Office Work, Only Human, Park, Playground, Poignant, Psychological Drama, Redemption, Saké, Stomach, Swing, Terminal Illness, Widower

Reparto principal:
Toshirô Mifune ... Tajômaru
Machiko Kyô ... Masako Kanazawa
Masayuki Mori ... Takehiro Kanazawa
Takashi Shimura ... Leñador
Minoru Chiaki ... Sacerdote
Kichijiro Ueda ... Plebeyo
Fumiko Honma ... Médium
Daisuke Katô ... Policía

Fotografía:
Kazuo Miyagawa

Música original:
Fumio Hayasaka

Montaje:
Akira Kurosawa

Palabras clave:
12th Century, Adult Situations, Asia, Baby, Bandit, Based On Short Story, Bleak, Cerebral, Contradictory Accounts, conversation, Court, Crime, Crime Drama, Dagger, Drama, Enigmatic, flashback, Flashback Sequence, Forest, Ghost, Heavy Rain, Horse, Investigation, Japan, Japanese, Jidai Geki, Katana, Katana Sword, kill, Knife, Literate, Literature, Mindbenders, Moody, Multiple Perspectives, Murder, Mystery, Non-linear, outlaw [Western], Period Film, Priest, Psychic, Rain, Rape, Rape & Sexual Abuse, Redemption, Samurai, Samurai Film, Stylized, suicide, Sword, Sword Fight, Tanto, Tense, Thriller, Trial, trial [courtroom], Truth, Unfaithful Wife, Witness, Woods

Reparto principal:
Tatsuya Nakadai ... Hanshiro Tsugumo
Rentaro Mikuni ... Kageyu Saito
Shima Iwashita ... Miho Tsugumo
Akira Ishihama ... Motome Chijiiwa

Fotografía:
Yoshio Miyajima

Música original:
Tôru Takemitsu

Montaje:
Hisashi Sagara

Palabras clave:
Austere, Bleak, Crisis of Conscience, Down on Their Luck, Downbeat, Drama, estate, Hara Kiri, Honor, honor [recognition], Not For Children, Period Film, Poverty, Redemption, Revenge, Samurai, Samurai Film, Seppuku, suicide, Tense

Reparto principal:
Takashi Shimura ... Kambei Shimada
Toshirô Mifune ... Kikuchiyo
Yoshio Inaba ... Gorobei Katayama
Seiji Miyaguchi ... Kyuzo
Minoru Chiaki ... Heihachi Hayashida
Daisuke Katô ... Shichiroji
Isao Kimura ... Katsushiro Okamoto
Keiko Tsushima ... Shino

Fotografía:
Asakazu Nakai

Música original:
Fumio Hayasaka

Montaje:
Akira Kurosawa

Palabras clave:
1570s, 16th Century, Action, Adventure, Arson, Asia, Atmospheric, attack, bad-guy, Cathartic, Class Differences, Culture Clash, defense [military], Drama, Ensemble Film, Epic, Farm, Farm Life, Farmer, Father Daughter Relationship, Flower, Forceful, good-guy, Grandfather, Gun, Harvest, Head Shaving, Heroic Mission, Honor, Hope, Horse, Hunger, Imagery, invasión, Japan, Jidai Geki, Katana Sword, Love, Man With No Name, Martial Arts, Mercenaries, Mercenary, Mill, Moral Amgibuity, Mud, Non Statutory Female On Male Rape, outlaw [Western], Peasant, Period Film, pillaging, Questionable for Children, Rain, rescue, Rice, Rifle, Righting the Wronged, romance, Ronin, Saké, Samurai, Samurai Film, Samurai Warrior, Showdown, Siege, Stylized, Suffering, Sweeping, Sword, Swordsman, Tense, Tough Guys, Tragedy, Tragic Hero, Villager, Violence, War, Warrior, Wipe, Young Love