Tag: Ryutaro Otomo

A Bullet Hole Underground (地下街の弾痕, Kazuo Mori, 1949)

Posted on by

Produced by Daiei Kyoto under the guidance of the Osaka Police, Bullet Hole Underground (地下街の弾痕, Chikagai no Dankon) is keen on selling a vision of order in a new Japan in which the police force employs all the latest technology to solve crimes calmly and methodically. We see them approach the crime scene forensically and conduct a series of scientific tests with microscopes and gadgets such as lie detector machines and code breaking equipment as they proceed towards the truth while earnest policeman Minagawa (Hiroshi Nihonyanagi) battles the ghosts of his past on realising that the dead man’s wife is his own lost love.

In any case, the film opens with a noirish scene at Umeda Station, Osaka, which then turns strangely comic. A man stumbles toward the exit and we assume that he is probably drunk but another man soon comes up behind him and pushes a pistol into his back. The second man pulls the trigger, then again to make sure, before calmly walking up the steps and leaving the station. A little while later, another drunk man arrives and has a little banter with the body before covering it with a signboard which is one reason it isn’t spotted until the shoeshine boys turn up in the morning. 

This sudden influx of children at rush hour is another symbol of the destabilisation of the post-war society in which the war orphans try to support themselves amid the still difficult economic environment. The lack of economic opportunities is also posited as a reason that the deceased, later identified as Kaneko, may have turned to crime by getting involved with a criminal gang smuggling drugs and money to destabilise the society even further. Yet the rot may have set in a little earlier than that. Before the war, Minagawa had wanted to marry Michiko (Machiko Kyo), the sister of his friend Sekiguchi (Toshiaki Konoe), but she later threw him over to marry the wealthy son of a family running a pharmacy. She admits she married him for the money, but after the war he lost everything. Unable to find work, Kaneko became a wastrel while Michiko gained employment at a cabaret bar as a dancer. He told her that he’d found a job at a company, but this turned out to be a lie and chief investigator Fujimoto (Takashi Shimura) assumes he must have been working for the gang. 

Still, to begin with it seems like it may have been a case of mistaken identity. Kaneko’s clothes turned out to belong to other people, a fact easily explained by Michiko that they were second hand, but also suggesting that someone may have set him up to take their fall. The gang needed the skills he learned in the navy but maybe they didn’t need him anymore. The root of the evil is located, ironically enough, in a jewellery store presenting a front of affluence and elegance but in reality founded on crime and misery when so many are still struggling to rebuild their lives. Michiko too seems to have turned cynical. She snarls and pushes Minagawa away, but privately cries and appears to regret her youthful decision to reject love for material comfort.

Perhaps because of its genesis as a film designed to promote the local police force, it has a much more upbeat conclusion and particularly for Michiko who is, unusually, allowed to redeem herself and gain a second chance to make a better decision by reuniting with Minagawa who does not and never has held her past against her. The pair of them look out over the fracturing city and remark at how it just carries on as if nothing had happened which feels like advice intended for the post-war society that it should do the same and try to leave the past behind to start a new life in this new era. Meanwhile, huge numbers of policemen swarm the harbour to crack down on the smuggling gang sending the not altogether comforting message that this city is well protected against all kinds of crime and the police force is a well-trained, modern institution that has the latest technology at its disposal along with astute and compassionate officers. There may be sleazy clubs, duplicitous men and heartless gangsters, black markets and smuggled dangers, but there are, the closing scenes with their wide-open vistas in which scorched trees stand behind the burgeoning city imply, better days to come.

Eleven Samurai (十一人の侍, Eiichi Kudo, 1967)

Posted on by

“If no one denounces the absurdity of this world, then our descendants will keep suffering,” a soon-to-be ronin insists in Eiichi Kudo’s revengers tragedy, Eleven Samurai (十一人の侍, Juichinin no Samurai). It seems clear from the outset that their actions will have little effect no matter whether they succeed or fail because the enemy is feudalism which may be approaching the end of its life but is definitely not dead yet. They can at least attempt to avenge their clan even if they can’t save it while refusing to let an entitled, selfish lord get away doing whatever he likes just because he happens to be the son of the former shogun and brother of the current one.

The opening scenes see Nariatsu (Kantaro Suga) chasing a deer having declared himself a “real hunter”. He ignores the cries of his men to watch where he’s going and sails over the border into the territory of Oshi which amounts to an invasion seeing as he is armed and has no permission to be there. The deer gets away, but Nariatsu shoots an old woodcutter whom he felt to be in his way with his bow and arrow. The Lord of the Abe clan that rules Oshi immediately takes him to task and tells Noriatsu that his behaviour is unbecoming for the son of the former shogun. He’s committed a murder in their territory, but they’re prepared to let it go as long as he leaves as soon as possible. But Nariatsu doesn’t like being told what to do and simply shoots the lord in the eye, potentially sparking a diplomatic incident. 

The Abe clan try to lodge a complaint in Edo, but are shut down by courtier Mizuno (Kei Sato) who fears that to acknowledge an event such as this would damage the moral authority of the Tokugawa regime. He decides to cover the whole thing up by claiming it was the Abe clan who insulted Noriatsu. The Abe clan will then be dissolved, and Oshi essentially gets nationalised. All of which suits Nariatsu just fine because he wants to take control of Oshi and expand his territory anyway. Part of his petulance seems to stem from the fact that he feels hard done by with such a small inheritance when his brother became the Shogun and received multiple fiefdoms. The previous Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyoshi, had produced an unusual number of children which became quite a problem in that he had to find lands for them all and eventually hastened the demise of the shogunate because of the additional strain. 

But Nariatsu is also an overgrown child who has no idea how to do anything for himself and no concern for the feelings or fortunes of others. When instructed to do something he doesn’t want to, Nariatsu petulantly stamps his feet and complains, and when his actions are challenged he simply replies that he’ll be telling his father. In fact, he is so infuriating that it’s likely most of his men secretly want him dead too, including his chief adviser Gyobu (Ryutaro Otomo) who was once the General Inspector but is now expected to babysit this absolute buffoon. Even though Nariatsu knows the Abe clan will be trying to kill him, he still sneaks out to the red light district and gets blind drunk with geisha which in itself is conduct unbecoming for a high ranking samurai such as himself. 

As such, he represents almost everything that’s wrong with the feudal order while Mizuno represents the rest. It’s Mizuno that secretly plots against the plotters, manipulating them into giving up their assassination mission by claiming to have switched sides only to backtrack and reveal he’s actually still working for Nariatsu fearing a reputational loss for the Tokugawa. Chief revenger Hayato (Isao Natsuyagi) is also banking on this fear of reputational damage, certain that the Shogunate won’t be able to bear the humiliation of Nariastsu being killed by a ronin so will instead claim that he died from an illness. Vowing to avenge the clan, Hayato righteously gives up his position to become one so that the Abes won’t be linked to the crime and is joined by 10 more similarly annoyed samurai. Six of them are already “dead” having been asked to commit seppuku for recklessly attacking Nariatsu on their own and blowing the whole operation. 

Hayato at least believes this to be a suicide mission. He leaves his loving wife and home and allows people to think he’s run off with Nui (Eiko Okawa), the younger sister of one of their number who died before he could join them. They do this because they think it must be done, and also because if no one stands up to samurai oppression it will never end. Wandering peasant Daijuro (Ko Nishimura) agrees with them. He wants revenge on the samurai for raping his sister after which his father and brother took their own lives. Nariatsu is as good as anyone else and he does very much need to die. 

But despite Daijuro’s homemade cannons, nothing quite goes to plan. Kudo sets his final battle in an atmospheric, misty valley that is an obvious stand in for the underworld. Hayato may succeed in killing Nariatsu but it’s a pyrrhic victory. Though he vowed “to put an end to this ridiculous world,” a samurai cannot really win this battle. It’s Daijuro who eventually walks off with Nariatsu’s head, symbolically decapitating the shogunate which the closing titles confirm was mortally wounded by this incident. With his striking black and white cinematography, Kudo does indeed paint this samurai world as a hellish place ruled over by an infinitely corrupt and self-interested authority. The nihilistic futility of it all is emphasised by the figure of a grown man sitting like a small child and splashing his sword in a puddle while surrounded by dead bodies. There might be a way out of this, but not for the samurai, only for those who will come after and perhaps finally be free of this world’s absurdity.

Castle of Owls (忍者秘帖 梟の城, Eiichi Kudo, 1963)

Posted on by

A surviving member of the Iga clan swears vengeance on Toyotomi Hideyoshi only to slowly come to the realisation that the best revenge is living well in Eiichi Kudo’s ninja drama, Castle of Owls (忍者秘帖 梟の城, Ninja Hicho: Fukuro no Shiro). Adapted from the novel by Ryotaro Shiba, the film is somewhat unusual in its positivity in allowing its hero to first reject the codes by which he was raised and then those of the prevailing times in eventually choosing love and happiness over the internecine obligation to gain vengeance against a corrupt social order.

Hoping to solidify his grip on power, Oda Nobunaga has his right-hand man Toyotomi Hideyoshi massacre the Iga clan of ninjas who are then almost entirely wiped out. Juzo (Ryutaro Otomo) and his friend Gohei (Minoru Oki) both survive, but Juzo’s entire family is brutally murdered while his sister takes her own life after being gang raped by Hideyoshi’s soldiers, using her final breath to tell her brother to avenge her. Overwhelmed by grief, Juzo is chastised by veteran ninja Jiroza (Kensaku Hara) for his show of emotion. He reminds him that a ninja should be as unbreakable as stone and that he should abandon all human sentiment. Juzo, however, insists that he may be a ninja but is also human and refuses to apologise for his feelings. 

This is it seems the major conflict. Jiroza has already signalled his own heartlessness and practicality when he advised the surviving ninja to flee, for escape is less dishonourable than death. Those who refuse are welcome to surrender, and those who cannot run must be left behind to their fate. For Jiroza, all that matters is survival for both himself and his small daughter Kizaru (Chiyoko Honma) who is currently tied to his back (no mention is made of her mother, perhaps she had already passed away). Now that his family are dead, Juzo has a new mission and reason for survival insisting that what the living can do for the dead is vengeance, though in his case it is personal rather than principled for he mostly wanted revenge for his sister rather than the Iga clan as a whole or anything it represents which he otherwise seems to be at odds with. 

10 years later, Oda Nobunaga has already been bumped off in an act of betrayal by one of his own men leaving Toyotomi Hideyoshi in charge and now the target for Juzo’s revenge. Around this time, Hideyoshi is planning an invasion of Korea against the advice of most of his courtiers in order to legitimise his rule through imperial ambition and military dominance. Juzo has been trying to assassinate him, and has apparently failed five times already. A surprise visit from Jiroza and his now teenage daughter involves a job opportunity promising a monetary reward should he succeed, but Juzo is wary. The merchant who hires him says he wants Hideyoshi out of the way because a war in Korea will damage his business prospects, but as Juzo points out Hideyoshi’s death will leave a power vacuum resulting in another civil war. The merchant, however, giggles childishly and remarks that domestic wars are good for business, leading Juzo to suspect he’s here on behalf of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the most likely to assume power in the event of Hideyoshi’s death.

The irony is though Juzo very definitely wants Hideyoshi dead, when someone else suggests it he becomes conflicted because he knows it will lead to another period of chaos in which even more people will die. Meanwhile, a ninja’s allegiance should belong to his client, who is always the highest bidder, so this is both a win-win situation and a mild conflict of interest. Conversely, Gohei (Minoru Oki), who was betrothed to Kizaru, has apparently betrayed the clan and taken a position as a retainer for one of Hideyoshi’s lords. He agrees to betray the Iga, inform on the plan to assassinate Hideyoshi, and even bring in Juzo in return for a 300-koku stipend and a shot of advancement under the new regime.

Now, on one level this might be understandable. Japan has emerged from a couple of hundred years of constant warfare, there’s no place for ninja in a world of peace as former Iga man Mimi (Tokue Hanasawa) remarks revealing that he’s survived the last 10 years through begging. It’s also understandable given that a ninja is expected to be duplicitous and act in self-interest. Even Juzo applaud’s Jiroza’s ninjutsu on realising that he’s teamed up with Gohei to betray him in order to take out the leader of the Koga ninjas. In essence, he’s only really done what Juzo later does but also the opposite in choosing his individual happiness through betraying those around him to throw his lot in with the person who murdered his entire clan. 

Juzo meanwhile is shaken by his unexpected attraction to female ninja Kohagi (Hizuru Takachiho), a daughter of the Koga,  who like him finds herself conflicted in her mission because of her growing affection for Juzo. Kohagi asks him if they really have to live on hate when they could live happily together instead, but even while conflicted Juzo can’t bring himself to let go of the idea of vengeance and is haunted by images of his friends and family dying. Even so, having decided to give up on a happy future and risk his life to kill Hideyoshi he finds that it ceases to matter. Confronting him, his hatred melts away. He begins to recognise the futility of revenge and that it would be silly to cause a war and make a merchant rich to prove a point. Gohei, meanwhile, pays a heavy price for his choices when his lord disowns him. Even when Juzo comes to rescue him from jail, he laughs that he’s caught him at last. Having escaped from the Iga life to live in the sun, he finds himself in darkness once again. Juzo, however, rides off into the sunshine with Kohagi to live in peace that’s divorced from the wider world. They choose to exile themselves from this world of darkness and duplicity, to live freely in the sunlight rather than be consumed by the internecine codes by which they were raised. Kudo films his ninja battles in near total silence with an almost balletic intensity and paints this world as one of infinite mistrust and uncertainty but equally affirms that it is possible to simply walk away and choose happiness over duty or hate.

Tengu Priest (お坊主天狗, Yasushi Sasaki, 1962)

Posted on by

Disparate denizens of Edo are united in one thing in Yasushi Sasaki’s light hearted jidaigeki, Tengu Priest (お坊主天狗, Obozu tengu), revenge. Like many jidaigeki, what they really want is revenge against the evils of feudalism to which they have each fallen victim, but also acknowledge that they have found something better in being outside it in the solidarity that exists between them as outsiders free from the obligations of samurai society if also with loose ends waiting to be tied.

Once a hatamoto with a 1000 Koku stipend, Obo Kichiza (Chiezo Kataoka) is now a much feared figure keeping order in Edo. When some yakuza toughs are hassling the geisha Kozome (Hibari Misora) at the theatre, insisting that she serve them sake even as she reminds them she’s off the clock, one look from him stops them dead though Kichizo is also impressed with Kozome’s nerve. Like him, Kozome is also in Edo for revenge. Formerly a samurai’s daughter, she became a geisha to look for the man who killed her father in a stupid quarrel over a fencing duel. Kichiza, meanwhile, seeks revenge against the local lord, Honda Etsu (Masao Mishima), who killed his father in a fit of temper when he ordered him to commit seppuku for causing his son-in-law to fall off his horse but he refused. 

Loyal retainer Kinpei (Ryutaro Otomo) had begged for his forgiveness and insisted that he could get Etsu to reform but three years have passed and not only has he bribed his way to head office but his behaviour has declined still further. We see him cruelly cut down a maid seemingly for no reason, simply ordering his men to get rid of the body. Etsu has a reputation for random violence while drunk, but as he is the lord, there are no real consequences for him. His retainers cover up his crimes, and Kinpei’s sole attempt to talk some sense into him goes nowhere, meanwhile his chief adviser Shichinosuke (Sentaro Fushimi) is basically running the show telling others the lord is not in his right mind and cannot make decisions so he must make them for him.

They are all, including Etsu himself, victims of the feudal order in which the systems of power are necessarily corrupt. In his yakuza persona, Kichiza has struck up a friendship with another geisha, Kozuru (Naoko Kubo), who was actually a lady in waiting working as a maid at his estate. She has long been in love with him, but the class difference would have made any union impossible. Ironically, she remarks to Kozome that even in their present state they are still a Hatamoto and a lady in waiting so she dare not express her love for him. Only once his revenge is concluded and he’s fully abandoned his samurai status can Kichiza truly be free to embrace a relationship with Kozuru while conversely Kozome regains her life as a samurai’s daughter by avenging the death of her father.

Kozome asks for Kichiza’s help to track down the target of her revenge, but he also respects her wishes and understands that it’s something she must do herself as does eccentric sword sharpener Shinzaburo (Hashizo Okawa ) who actively stands back so she, another wronged woman, can stick the knife in. Hibari Misora’s role in the film is smaller than one might expect as her revenge subplot is secondary to Kichiza’s and she has relatively little screen time with only a brief musical sequence during a naginata dance though she does participate in the high octane final showdown in which all grievances are exorcised and a kind of order returned to the samurai realm even if it must be destroyed to so as Kinpei resolves to protect both the lives and livelihoods of their many retainers and the integrity of Kichiza, going so far as to congratulate Kozome on the successful completion of her revenge. 

Yet what made the whole thing possible was Kichiza’s own band of outlaw drifters whom he allowed to live in his home he later says just so that they would have a place to come and be together so that they might more easily reintegrate into mainstream society. He might have lost his domain and samurai status but has discovered something better in this accidental community. They may be in a sense almost like retainers to him, but if so they stay by choice rather than obligation and help out of a genuine sense of loyalty and affection. In essence, in taking his revenge, he frees himself from the oppressive nature of the samurai code and is able to live like an ordinary man lamenting that if only he and Kinpei had both been ronin they could have enjoyed their time together for longer. Lighthearted and cheerful despite its dark themes, the film is nevertheless a condemnation of the hypocrisies and abuses of a feudal society in which freedom is to be found only among those who live outside it.

The Magic Serpent (怪竜大決戦, Tetsuya Yamanouchi, 1966)

Posted on by

Something of an oddity, Tetsuya Yamanouchi’s The Magic Serpent (怪竜大決戦, Kairyu daikessen) puts a tokusatsu spin on the classic ninja movie in a jidaigeki tale of revenge that ends ultimately in revolution rather than the restoration of the feudal order. A big screen monster movie from Toei, the film was released around the same time as the studio embarked on its signature line of tokusatsu serials such as Captain Ultra which aired the following year.

Drawing inspiration from the Tale of Jiraiya, the hero Ikazuchimaru (Hiroki Matsukata) later even giving himself Jiraiya’s name and indeed riding a giant toad, The Magic Serpent nevertheless seems to have been influenced by contemporary wuxia films from Hong Kong and Taiwan right down to the appearance of martial arts master with a flowing white beard and a distinctly philosophical way of speaking. At one point, Ikazuchimaru even rides an animated cloud much like the Monkey King in Journey to the West.

In any case, set in the pre-Edo feudal era the revenge tale revolves around treacherous lords as the ambitious Yuki Daijo (Bin Amatsu) teams up with evil ninja Orochimaru (Ryutaro Otomo) to kill his master, Ogata, and take over his castle. Daijo orders that Ogata’s son, Ikazuchimaru, be murdered so that he won’t cause them any problems in the future but the boy is rescued by a servant and makes his escape at which point Orochimaru transforms into a giant dragon and capsizes his boat. Luckily, a giant bird then arrives and pecks Orochimaru on the nose, rescuing Ikazuchimaru and taking him to the mountain retreat of ninja master Goma Douji (Nobuo Kaneko) where he trains for 14 years in preparation for his revenge.

To this point, it might be said that the corruption is to the feudal era rather than of it though through his travels Ikazuchimaru comes to see how the ordinary people suffer as a result of Yuki Daijo’s oppressive rule. He comes to the rescue of a small family who in turn help him to overcome Yuki Daijo’s checkpoints as they search for him having become aware that he has survived and is intent on his revenge. But unbeknownst to him, Orochimaru is also potting to exploit the threat posed by Ikazuchimaru by stealing his identity to oust Yuki Daijo and take over the castle himself as its “rightful” heir.

Meanwhile, Ichikazu meets his opposite number, Tsunade (Tomoko Ogawa), who is searching for a father she has never met and can identify only by a keepsake from her now departed mother. In a shocking turn of events, it transpires that her grandmother is also a ninja master and gives her a magic hairpin she can use to call for help. Both searching for their birthright, the two eventually wind up at the castle and a confrontation with a corrupted feudalism. The surprising thing is in this case that Ikazuchimaru rejects his place as the heir and declines to rebuild the clan. With the castle now destroyed by the fight between his giant toad, Ochimaru’s dragon, and a mystery third party, the feudal order itself has been ruined. “There are only beautiful fields for you farmers left to create,” he tells the surviving members of the family that helped him. “Stay healthy and cultivate great lands.” He leaves with Tsunade, who is returning to her grandmother, and vows to travel to the place where his master lies or symbolically to the place of his spiritual rather than biological father.

Yamanouchi went on to work more in television than movies, apparently a devotee of period drama in both his personal and professional lives yet, makes fantastic use of special effects on an otherwise limited budget even briefly switching to black and white when the ghosts of Ikazuchimaru’s murdered parents appear to torment the usurping Yuki Daijo. Thunder, lightning, and ninja tricks mix seamlessly with tokusatsu action as the giant monsters finally approach their showdown yet perhaps in keeping with the surprisingly progressive outcome Ikazuchimaru struggles against the evil powers of Orochimaru and in the end cannot win alone but only with the help of those around him as they rise to challenge not only Orochimaru’s evil subversion of morals both feudal and spiritual in his betrayal of his master, but the evils of the feudal order itself and finally free themselves from its oppressive yoke.

Cantankerous Edo (大江戸喧嘩纏, Kiyoshi Saeki, 1957)

Posted on by

A noble-hearted samurai on the run falls for a fireman’s sister in Kiyoshi Saeki’s hugely enjoyable jidaigeki musical adventure Cantankerous Edo (大江戸喧嘩纏, Oedo Kenka Matoi). Another vehicle for Hibari Misora and samurai movie star Hashizo Okawa, Saeki’s wholesome drama finds its heroes not only standing up to the oppressions of a rigid class system but also taking on a bunch of entitled sumo wrestlers intent on throwing their weight around having apparently lost sight of the tenets of traditional sumo wrestling such as fighting for justice and having a kind heart. 

To begin at the beginning, however, young samurai Shinzaburo (Hashizo Okawa) is on the run believing that he has accidentally killed another man who attacked him in order to clear the path towards his fiancée, Otae (Hiroko Sakuramachi), whom he wasn’t going to marry anyway because he realised she was in love with someone else and wanted to help marry him instead. Having escaped to Edo, he takes refuge inside a parade of firemen lead by Tatsugoro (Ryutaro Otomo) and his feisty sister Oyuki (Hibari Misora) who decide to take him in after hearing his story. Adopting the simpler, common name of “Shinza” he begins life as a fireman and gradually falls for Oyuki but remains a wanted man constantly dodging the attentions of his uncle, the local inquisitor, and the magistrates. 

More a vehicle for Okawa than Misora who plays a relatively subdued role save for boldly stealing the standard and climbing a roof herself when the others are delayed, Cantankerous Edo takes aim not particularly at a corrupt social order but of the oppressive nature of class divisions as Shinza discovers a sense of freedom and possibility he was previously denied as a samurai while living as a common man. It’s this desire for personal autonomy and the freedom to follow one’s heart that led to his exile from his clan, unwilling to marry a woman he knew not only did not love him but in fact loved someone else and would have been forever miserable if forced to marry him out of duty alone. “The life of a samurai who has to be somebody or not to suit another’s convenience is utterly stupid” he bluntly tells his uncle and Otae’s father, “how you cling onto family status, heritage, and honour. All that fuss, I hate it.” he adds before turning to Otae and encouraging her too to stand up to her father and insist on marrying the man she loves rather than be traded to another. 

Meanwhile, the two women exchange some contradictory messages about the nature of class and womanhood, the samurai lady Otae confessing that she isn’t sure she’s strong enough to fight for love in the face of tradition and filial duty in contrast to Oyuki’s spirited defence of Shinza the fireman insisting that firemen don’t think about such trivial things as name or family status before throwing themselves into harm’s way for the public good. “All women are weak” Otae sighs, Oyuki replying that they need to be strong for the men they love, “that’s what it means to be a woman”. Love may be in this sense a force of liberation, destabilising the social order but also a means of improving it, yet it still reduces women to a supporting role ironically as perhaps the film does to Misora who in contrast to some of her feistier performances takes something of a back seat. 

Romance aside, the main drama revolves around a conflict between the local sumo wrestlers who have turned into thuggish louts under their boorish leader Yotsuguruma (Nakajiro Tomita), taking against the fireman and forever spoiling for a fight. The samurai proving unexpectedly understanding, the sumo wrestlers become the main source of oppression in usurping a class status they don’t really have. The noble Tatusgoro tries to stave off the fight insisting that they aren’t brawling yakuza but responsible firemen here to serve the public good and should save their energy for fighting fires rather than their obnoxious neighbours. Nevertheless the fight cannot be held off forever. Tatsugoro is forced to redefine the nature of “fire” after hearing a warning bell informing him one of his men is in grave danger unable to manage their anger anymore.  

Saeki’s jidaigeki musical has surprisingly good production values for a Toei programmer, making space for a few songs along the way celebrating the valour of the firemen while Oyuki meditates on her potentially impossible romance and the perils of love across the class divide. While the conclusion may end up ironically reinforcing the hierarchical society, it does however make the case for the right to romantic freedom along with the necessity of human compassion in the face of inconsiderate arrogance and intimidation.

Note: This film is sometimes titled “Fight Festival in Edo” but according to Eirin’s database, the official English-language title is “Cantankerous Edo”. Rather confusingly, a very similar film with a very similar title (大江戸喧嘩まつり) was produced in colour at Toei in 1961 and is known as “Fight Festival in Edo” in English. Meanwhile, Hibari Misora also starred in another colour film with a very similar storyline in 1958 (唄祭りかんざし纏) which is known as “Girl with the Fire Banner” in English but listed as “Festival of Song” on Eirin’s database.

The Thief in Black (黒の盗賊, Umetsugu Inoue, 1964)

Posted on by

Best known as a master of the musical, Umetsugu Inoue had a long and varied filmography embracing almost every genre imaginable. He began his career at Shintoho and later joined Nikkatsu where he quickly became an in demand director often working with top star Yujiro Ishihara, but took the somewhat unusual step of going freelance in 1960 thereafter working at various studios including Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong. 1964’s The Thief in Black (黒の盗賊, Kuro no Tozoku) is not a musical but is characteristically playful even within the confines of the lighter side of Toei’s jidaigeki adventures. 

Set between the Battle of Sekigahara and the Siege of Osaka, the samurai corruption in play is essentially the burgeoning Tokugawa dictatorship, the heroes eventually uncovering Ieyasu’s secret plan for making sure his line (well, more himself in essence) remains in power for perpetuity through an insidious plot to weaken the feudal lords and ensure their loyalty to him. Meanwhile, the still developing city of Edo is beginning to turn against the Tokugawa who seem to be intent on exploiting ordinary people to enrich themselves most obviously through forcing the local workforce to renovate Edo castle rather than cleaning up the town which is apparently rampant with crime. Faced with such lack of leadership, the townspeople have come to admire a Robin Hood-like vigilante known only as the Thief in Black who alone is resisting overreaching lords. 

Part of the problem is that Ieyasu’s rule is still insecure because of the potential threat of Hideyori Toyotomi in Osaka. Consequently, they are fearful that some of the men working on the castle may be Toyotomi spies or otherwise disclose information that might benefit him if he chose to attack which is why they’ve refused the workers permission to return home to their families during the pause before beginning the second phase of works leading to further unrest. Meanwhile, corrupt local lord Tadakatsu (Ryutaro Otomo) and his sleazy priest buddy Tenkai (Minoru Chiaki) have an even darker plan in mind, preparing to simply kill the five master craftsmen in charge to ensure they present no threat. Alerted to the situation on the ground by idealistic samurai Jiro (Hashizo Okawa), their boss instructs Tadakatsu in no uncertain terms that he must treat the workers fairly in order to prevent civil unrest and/or disillusionment with the Tokugawa regime but the pair are entirely unfazed and determined to go on with their nefarious plan getting rid of Jiro if the occasion arises. 

As we later discover and in a typical jidaigeki plot device, Jiro is one of a pair of twins with his brother Kotaro (also Hashizo Okawa) abandoned because of the superstitious belief that multiple births are inauspicious. Though both men unwittingly lay claim to the name, Kotaro turns out to be the masked vigilante, his primary cause to regain the lands of the family who raised him unfairly displaced from their estates on the Musashino plains because of Tokugawa greed. Though Jiro, raised as a member of the establishment, is originally loyal to the Tokugawa who have after all brought about an era of peace, he soon begins to see that their rule is no good for the people of Edo. In his more egalitarian worldview, only by enriching the poor can they secure their rule which means less castle building and more infrastructural development along with paying people fairly for their work and absolutely not killing them afterwards. Kotaro too claims that his rebellion is for the good of the common people though unlike Jiro is much more transgressive in his ideology prepared to shake off his samurai status to become a wandering outlaw rather than content himself with the restrictive life of the heir to a samurai clan. 

Such messages are perhaps common in Toei’s brand of jidaigeki but seem unusually pronounced as the peasant workers are often given voice to lament their fate and resist their oppression more directly, pointing the finger not just at a rogue rotten lord but at the entire system built on exploiting their labour. Nevertheless, Inoue injects a hearty dose of whimsical humour to the politically charged narrative even going so far as to include a bumbling ninja claiming to be the famous Hattori Hanzo along with a comic relief magistrate and former samurai brothel owner taking his own kind of ironic revenge in getting the cowardly lords hooked on modernity with a load of faulty rifles. Obviously, Ieyasu couldn’t be stopped, but perhaps they slowed him down and reminded him of the dangers of underestimating the people. Shot with Inoue’s characteristic flare if remaining largely within the Toei house style, Thief in Black is a surprisingly direct attack on corrupt and entitled government but also a righteous romp as its idealistic heroes shuffle themselves back into their ideal positions while fighting Tokugawa oppression all the way. 

The Swordsman and the Actress (大江戸千両囃子, Yasushi Sasaki, 1955)

Posted on by

Working mainly with Toei, singer Hibari Misora was able to carve out for herself a distinctive career as a tentpole movie star in the early post-war period. In contrast to other female stars of the day, Misora’s leading women are generally feisty and rebellious standing up against injustice in period films and contemporary dramas alike while she also made a point of subverting societal gender norms often crossdressing or playing with gender ambiguity. 1955’s The Swordsman and the Actress (大江戸千両囃子, Oedo Senryo Bayashi) meanwhile sees her taking a backseat to the main action but sowing the seeds for her later career as she stops a cruel samurai plot in its tracks and even gets to participate in the final showdown. 

The drama starts when young actress Koharu (Hibari Misora) misplaces her fan and is lent one by another performer which attracts the attention of bad samurai Shuzen Ogaki (Kyu Sazanaka) who recognises it as having once belonged to the Shogun. As it turns out, Koharu’s friend Hanji (Rentaro Kita) was gifted the fan by a childhood friend, a noble woman, Okyo (Keiko Yashioji), for whom he may have had feelings which would could never be returned seeing as he was the son of a maid. Having seen him in a play but feeling it would be inappropriate to meet, Okyo sent the fan in fondness but had not realised it to be valuable and is now in a difficult position as the Shogun will soon be visiting and if he does not see the fan will be offended. Shuzen wants the fan for himself to embarrass Okyo and her husband and advance his own position. Just as Okyo dispatches trusted retainer Gennojo (Chiyonosuke Azuma) to ask Hanji to return the fan, Shuzen sends in his goons killing Hanji but only after he manages to substitute a fake fan for the real one. 

What follows is a complicated game of find the lady as the fake fan and the real are swapped between Gennojo and Shuzen often via a pair of pickpockets, Oryu (Ayuko Saijo) and sidekick, who alternately help and hinder largely because Oryu develops a crush on the extremely disinterested Gennojo. As usual, Koharu is on the side of right trying to fulfil Hanji’s dying wish by returning the fan to Okyo before the Shogun’s New Year visit but is also on a side quest of her own in looking for her long lost sister. It would be tempting in a sense to view the fan as cursed as it indeed provokes nothing but trouble, not only getting Hanji killed and endangering the lives of Okyo and her son, but also provoking discord wherever it’s mentioned sending a pair of married shopkeepers into a blazing row when they realise their young son may have walked off with the priceless object (and later sold it so his mum can buy sake). 

In the quest for the fan, Koharu takes a backseat while Gennojo does most of the leg work played as he is by jidaigeki star Chiyonosuke Azuma with whom Misora would frequently co-star. Though there are hints of a romance it is not the main thrust of the drama considering Misora’s relative youth, though she does get to wistfully sing the title song several times over. Meanwhile the pair are finally joined by a late in the game appearance from veteran Ryutaro Otomo as a typically raucous ronin, Jubei, who steals the screen to such an extent it almost seems as if the film is part of a series revolving around his character who turns out to be another victim of Shuzen’s plot having been exiled from his clan supposedly for having turned down the advances of his now mistress Oren. “I, Fujisaki Jubei, may be unemployed but mine is still the sword of righteousness and it doesn’t like evil doers!” he snarls apparently quite fed up with samurai corruption. 

Sasaki certainly has a lot of fun with his fan swapping shenanigans, even going slightly experimental in an excuse to give Chiyonosuke Azuma a fan dance while throwing in additional comic relief from the bumbling pickpockets and some strangely comic death scenes but does not disappoint as the major heroes and villains reunite in the final showdown taking place as it does on stage and allowing Koharu’s troupe mistress to show off her sword skills while Oryu redeems herself and the evil samurai plot is finally defeated by the forces of righteousness. An anarchic affair, Swordsman and the Actress never takes itself too seriously but nevertheless sows the seeds for many of Misora’s subsequent adventures as she sets the world to rights again with the aid of her two complementary samurai sidekicks. 

Musical clip (no subtitles)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWomKzzSu-0

The Master Spearman (酒と女と槍, Tomu Uchida, 1960)

Posted on by

After the war during the American occupation, the samurai film encountered a de facto ban with the authorities worried that historical epics may encourage outdated fuedal and fascistic ideology. The period films of the post-war era, however, are often fiercely critical of the samurai order even as it stands in for the hypocrisies of the contemporary society. Two years before Masaki Kobayashi launched a similar assault on the notion of samurai honour in Harakiri, Tomu Uchida’s The Master Spearman (酒と女と槍, Sake to Onna to Yari) finds a loyal retainer similarly troubled when he is ordered to die only to be ordered not to and then finally told that yes he must commit suicide to serve a kind of honour in which he no longer believes. 

Takasada (Ryutaro Otomo) is a battlefield veteran with the Tomita clan much revered for his skill with the spear. As a retainer to the current regent, Hidetsugu (Yataro Kurokawa), he finds himself in trouble when the ageing Hideyoshi (Eijiro Tono) stages a coup to solidify his power, accusing his nephew of treason on abruptly “discovering” a stash of illegally obtained rifles. Takasada is outraged not to have been ordered to die with his master, but later resents being “strongly encouraged” to do so by his brother, the head of their clan. Storming out, he temporarily retreats into a drunken haze during which he convinces his favourite actress, Umeme (Hiromi Hanazono), to stay with him (just serving drinks, no funny business), before committing himself to public seppuku on a date of his own choosing. When the day arrives, Takasada is greeted by parades of “well wishers” keen to congratulate him for being such a fine samurai. Encouraging those in line to step out of it and stand horizontally without account of rank or status, he agrees to drink with them all, with the consequence that he becomes extremely drunk and passes out. 

Just as he’s about to cut his belly, a messenger arrives from Hideyoshi himself ruling Takasada’s suicide illegal. He if goes ahead and does it anyway, his clan will be disgraced. Takasada’s brother changes his tune and begs him not to proceed for the sake of the Tomita honour. Thoroughly fed up, Takasada has a sudden epiphany about the hypocrisies of the samurai code and decides to renounce his status, dropping out of court life to live simply in the country where he is eventually joined by Umeme who has fallen in love with him. 

Meanwhile, court intrigue intensifies. These are the quiet years leading up to the decisive battle of Sekigahara which in itself decided the course of Japanese history. While the elderly Hideyoshi attempts to hold on to power by ruling as a regent on behalf of his sickly son Hideyori, Tokugawa Ieyasu (Eitaro Ozawa) plots on the sidelines. Hideyoshi is advised by his steward Mitsunari (Isao Yamagata) to take a hard line with treachery, executing all 36 “spies” planted in his household by Ieyasu, including a number of women and children. Mitsunari is himself working with the other side, and the executions are nothing short of a PR disaster for Hideyoshi, provoking fear and resentment in the general populace who can’t accept the inherent cruelty of putting women and children to the sword. Sakon (Chikage Awashima), a kabuki actress and fiercely protective friend of Umeme, comes to a similar conclusion to Takasada, hating the samurai order for its merciless savagery. 

That’s perhaps why she’s originally wary of Takasada’s interest in Umeme, uncertain he will keep his promise to keep his hands off her and so staying over one night herself to make sure Umeme is safe. Umeme, meanwhile, may not have wanted him to be quite so honourable, leaving in the morning visibly irritated and exclaiming that Takasada is drunk on himself and understands nothing of women. That may be quite true, but it’s his sense of honour which eventually tells him that he must reject the samurai ideal. First they tell him honour dictates he must die, then that he must not, then when Hideyoshi dies and the prohibition is lifted, that he must die after all because his entire clan is embarrassed by his continuing existence. By this point, Takasada has decided to accept his “cowardice”. Sickened by the spectacle of his ritual suicide and the humiliation of its cancelation, he came to the conclusion that “loyalty and honour for world fame, glorious exploits etc” is all a big joke. He loves food, and wine, and his wife, and if that means others call him coward so be it because he’s finally happy and perhaps free. 

His spear, however still hangs over his hearth. He hasn’t truly let go of it or of the code with which he was raised. Sakon, perhaps on one level jealous and guarding her own feelings as she accepts that Umeme has chosen to leave the stage to retreat into an individual world with Takasada, warns her that her happiness will end if Takasada is convinced to accept a commission from the Tokugawa. He surprises her by once again renouncing his status as a samurai, choosing to stay a “coward” living a simple life of love and happiness. But as soon as he puts his hand on the spear intending to break it for good something in him is reawakened. He can’t do it. He finds himself at Sekigahara, confronted not only by samurai hypocrisy but by his own as Sakon does what he could not do to show him what he has betrayed. His rage explodes and he raises his spear once again but not for the Tokugawa, against the samurai order itself piercing the very banners which define it in an ironic assault on an empty ideology.  

Yakuza Law (やくざ刑罰史　私刑!, Teruo Ishii, 1969)

Posted on by

yakuza law posterOne of the things that (supposedly) separates the “yakuza” from regular thugs is that they have a “code”. That code means many and various things, but in their grand mission to justify their existence it often means that they stand up for the little guy, all too often oppressed by the powers that be. Of course, a lot of people might feel themselves to be oppressed by yakuza thugs who like to throw their weight around and generally cause trouble for small business holders, but that’s beside the point. Teruo Ishii’s Yakuza Law (やくざ刑罰史　私刑!, Yakuza Keibatsushi: Lynch!) goes one step further and asks if the yakuza are themselves “oppressed” by their own code, or at least the various ways it is used and subverted by all who subscribe to it.

Set in three distinct time periods, Yakuza Law is also fairly unique in that the vast majority of those on the receiving end of its violence are male. The yakuza is an extremely homosocial world after all. Each of the three tales presented is preceded by a title card featuring the particular “laws” the unhappy gangsters are about to break and what kind of punishment they might expect for doing so.

The first and earliest, set in the Edo era, is a typical giri/ninjo tale that places the ideal of the yakuza code against the need to preserve a personal vision of justice. The “rules” here are that a yakuza does not steal and he does not fool around with married women. Our hero, Tsune (Bunta Sugawara), takes the heat for a nervous underling, Shinkichi (Hiroshi Miyauchi), who crumbled in the heat of battle, but incurs the wrath of his boss while a devious footsoldier, Viper (Renji Ishibashi), hides in the bushes and then stabs a corpse numerous times to make it look as if he’s done good service. Viper, not content with his ill-gotten gains, sets up Tsune and his superior Tomozo (Ryutaro Otomo) by implicating them in a gambling scam while Tsune falls for the boss’ girl Oren (Yoshiko Fujita) who is also desperately trying to protect the feckless Shinkichi.

The problem with all of this, it would seem, is not so much that the yakuza “law” has been broken but that’s it’s being misused in all quarters and is clearly in conflict with basic humanity. The boss uses the code to manipulate his underlings and keep a firm grip on his power, while Viper bends it to his own nefarious ways and a third underling, Shohei (Shhinichiro Hayashi), rests on the sidelines playing a little each way but remaining loyal to his brothers even as the axe falls on his head. The punishments meted out are suitably gruesome, escalating from finger cutting to eye gauging and ear removal in a senseless and counterproductive lust for violence which does eventually blow back on the boss who pushes his authority too far over too small a cause.

In tale two, however, which takes place in 20th century pre-war Japan, the “crime” is causing trouble and the punishment exile, but again the problem is not the code but the men who subvert it. Thus, hotheaded foot soldier Ogata (Minoru Oki) sets the cat amongst the pigeons by starting a gang war on his own and is sent to prison for three years during which time his gang prospers because of the movement he started. Even so, they aren’t keen to have him back when he gets out and immediately exile him from their territory. He sticks around waiting for his girl, Sayo (Masumi Tachibana), but she gets picked up by the evil boss who wants her for himself and delays her departure so that Ogata can be captured. Believing he’s dead, she hooks up with another goodhearted yakuza, Amamiya (Toyozo Yamamoto), who saves her from the bad guys only to have a romantic crisis when Ogata suddenly resurfaces. Amamiya and Ogata are, however, both “good” yakuza which means they both really love Sayo and want the best for her, each respecting the other for the old love and the new as they team up to kick the corrupt yakuza out of town and make sure she’s permanently safe whoever it is she eventually ends up with.

By the third tale we’ve reached the contemporary era, but we’re no longer in a traditional “yakuza” world so much as one seemingly ripped from a spy spoof in which the cardinal rule is that if you undermine the organisation you will be eliminated. More thugs than yakuza, this kind have no code and will stoop to the lowest kind of cruelty solely for money. Debonair, 007-esque international hitman Hirose (Teruo Yoshida) accepts a job from shady gangster Shimazu (Takashi Fujiki) to assassinate his boss, only Shimazu offs him first and then frames Hirose (which he finds very irritating). Hirose spends the rest of the picture teaching him a lesson while Shimazu tries to eliminate his competition in increasingly inhuman ways (including having someone crushed into a cube while trapped inside a luxury car).

Bar the third episode which isn’t really even about “yakuza”, what Ishii seems to be saying is that the yakuza are also oppressed because they are forced to live with fragmented integrity, torn between giri and ninjo in their adherence to an arcane set of values which are often overly enforced at the cost of true “justice”. To be fair, that is the idea behind every other yakuza film, but Ishii does is add a more cynical edge in suggesting the issue isn’t the code and conflicting value systems but individualised corruption (which is itself perhaps a kind of “ninjo”) in those who deliberately misuse the “noble” idea of the code for their own ends – something which has intensified since the Edo era though is apparently not a result of post-Meiji internationalism. All of that aside, despite the brutality of the title, Yakuza Law is fairly tame outing for Ishii which tempers its lust for blood with cartoonish irony as its deluded heroes battle themselves in service of a code which has never and will never truly serve them.

Available on blu-ray from Arrow Video in a set which also includes a new audio commentary by Jasper Sharp and a vintage interview with Teruo Ishii, as well as a booklet featuring new writing by Tom Mes.

Original trailer (no subtitles)