Escape from Hell / 無宿人別帳/ Mushukunin-betsucho (1963)

Obscure Japanese Film #93

Keiji Sada

During the winter of 1802-3, a group of convicts are transported in individual bamboo cages to the island of Sado, where they have been sentenced to hard labour draining a gold mine. Among them is Yaju (Keiji Sada), a formerly honourable samurai who became a criminal after the woman he loved, Kumi (Mariko Okada), was forced into a marriage with the more senior Kurozuka (Hiroshi Nihonyanagi). 

 

Hiroshi Nihonyanagi and Mariko Okada

In an unfortunate coincidence, Kurozuka becomes the new governor of the mine, while his scheming subordinate Kojuro (Hiroyuki Nagato) informs Kumi that her former lover Yaju is among the prisoners. Always planning ahead, Kojuro also decides it could be to his advantage to push his own mistress, Rin (Sachiko Hidari), into the arms of the inexperienced new magistrate. 

Hiroyuki Nagato and Sachiko Hidari

 

Meanwhile, the prisoners find themselves not only working in life-threatening conditions, but also treated brutally by the foreman (Ko Nishimura) and his henchman Hachizo (Toranosuke Tennoji). 

 

Rentaro Mikuni and Kanemon Nakamura

However, two trusties, Shinpei (Rentaro Mikuni) and Seibei (Kanemon Nakamura) are more sympathetic and do what they can for the men. Seibei also has a daughter, Miyo (Masuyo Iwamoto*), who treats the men when they are wounded, but is raped by one named Senta (Masahiko Tsugawa) for her pains. When conditions become unbearable, the men decide to make a desperate escape attempt headed by Shinpei – but can the trusty be trusted?

Mariko Okada

 

This Shochiku production takes its Japanese title from the title of Seicho Matsumoto’s 1958 short story collection containing the story ‘Tobo’ (‘Escape’) upon which the film is partly based. The title is hard to translate into English, but in the Edo period during which the stories were set, the mushukunin were people who had been removed from the family register, and each of the stories in Matsumoto’s collection was centred on a character who was some kind of social outcast, i.e. a homeless person or criminal. However, the film is also partly based on a second Matsumoto story, ‘Sado runinko’ (‘Sado Exile Journey’), published in 1957. I’m uncertain whether there was really a mass escape attempt at the Sado gold mine, but it’s certainly true that, during the late Edo period, the authorities would round up vagrants and send them to do forced labour there. In any case, the man who used this interesting historical setting along with other elements of the two Matsumoto stories and turned it all into a fine screenplay was Hideo Oguni, known for his work on many of Kurosawa’s most famous films. 

Mariko Okada

 

The director, Kazuo Inoue (1924-2011), had worked as an assistant to Minoru Shibuya, Yuzu Kawashima and Yasujiro Ozu before becoming a Shochiku director himself in 1954. Escape from Hell is the 11^th of 12 films he made for the company before going freelance in 1964, after which he seems to have been unable to sustain a career in the declining Japanese film industry. Although he managed to direct a further eight pictures, most of these were comedies of little note, the exception being his final film, a documentary about Ozu entitled I Lived But… (1983). Apart from allowing some of the actors in the smaller parts to overact, his direction of Escape from Hell is impressive and he clearly knew how to get the most out of a scene.

Hiroyuki Nagato

 

Another factor which makes Escape from Hell worth seeking out is the host of well-known faces among the cast, even including Tora-san actor Kiyoshi Atsumi as a convict with a snoring problem. Hiroyuki Nagato from Pigs and Battleships is especially good as the devious Kojuro, constantly figuring all the angles to his own advantage, although Mariko Okada is sadly wasted in her role, which gives her little to do. Used to better advantage is Rentaro Mikuni, who gives one of the strongest performances here as an escaping convict. This fact, together with Sachiko Hidari’s appearance as a giggling former prostitute, suggests that Tomu Uchida saw the film and was influenced in his casting for A Fugitive from the Past (1965). 

 

Rentaro Mikuni

However, the real revelation for me among the cast was Keiji Sada – I’ve seen many of his films and always liked him, but would never have imagined Sada as the tough, unshaven, moody samurai he plays here, a role he pulls off very well indeed. It’s a reminder of what a loss to Japanese cinema his premature death in a car crash the following year was. 

Keiji Sada

 

 *Sometimes incorrectly listed as Tayo Iwamoto in English.