Obscure Japanese Film #272
 |
| Kinnosuke Nakamura |
The late Muromachi period,
c.1467, the beginning of the Onin War. Samé, or ‘Shark boy’
(Kinnosuke Nakamura), is a young shark fisherman who lives as an
outcast near a fishing village on the Echizen coast. As itinerants,
his family are not accepted by the villagers and he is forced to hand
over his catch every day and accept the scraps they allow him to keep
for himself. When hostility towards the itinerants increases, their
huts are burned and Samé’s mother (Akiko Kazami) killed, so he and
an itinerant elder
(Yoshi Kato)
decide to head for the capital (Kyoto) on foot in search of a better
future.
 |
| Yoshi Kato |
However, the old man
falls ill and
passes away en route, after which Samé hooks up with a middle-aged
woman (Michiyo Kogure) making the same journey alone. She has a
mysterious supply of meat which keeps them going but, horrified to
discover that it’s actually human flesh, Samé abandons her and
continues on his own.
 |
| Michiyo Kogure |
 |
| Minoru Chiaki |
It’s
a time of widespread famine, and Samé turns to stealing in order to
survive. He’s taken under the wing of Shirasawa (Minoru Chiaki), a
one-armed criminal with a black mark on his face, who teaches Samé
to be more ambitious in his thievery and even encourages him to kill.
Inevitably, the pupil eventually turns on his master and, by the time
Samé has become a fully-fledged adult, he’s a ruthless man indeed.
 |
| Daisuke Kato |
He next joins a gang of mercenaries led by Genji of Chikushi (Daisuke
Kato) in the hope of receiving not only wealth but a position of
power in exchange for the heads he takes in battle. By this time, his
willingness to commit evil seems to know no bounds, but when he tries
to rape a nun (Yoshiko Mita), her unexpected reaction awakens his
lost humanity.
 |
| Yoshiko Mita |
Based
on a best-selling, prize-winning two-part novel of the same name by
Nobuhiko Matsugi (1932-2016) and adapted for the screen by director
Tomotaka Tasaka’s regular collaborator Naoyuki Suzuki (who also
frequently worked for Tomu Uchida), like many of Tasaka’s films,
this is a lengthy one, clocking in at around 165 minutes. With former
kabuki actor Kinnosuke Nakamura – one of the biggest stars of
Japanese cinema at the time – in the lead role. it was a major
production for Toei, so it’s surprising that it’s not better
known, though this is likely because it was not an award winner and
appears to have been out of circulation for many years. At the time,
Kinema Junpo ranked it 17th in the list of best
films of 1964, and it was the third most successful of the year in
terms of box office.
 |
| Nakamura |
The
film depends heavily on its star, Kinnosuke Nakamura, a talented
actor but one who had a tendency to go over the top, which he
certainly does here, with his maniacal laugh being overused in the
later scenes. It might also have been better to cast a younger actor
in the part of Samé as a boy – indeed, it took me a while to
realise that the 32-year-old actor was playing a boy at the
beginning. Regarding the other cast members, it’s as surprising to
see Michiyo Kogure as a cannibal as it is predictable to see the
cadaverous Jun Hamamura – who had already tasted ‘monkey meat’
in Fires on the Plain (1959) – desperate for a taste, but
it’s the two Seven Samurai veterans, Minoru Chiaki and
Daisuke Kato, who come off best as Nakamura’s two mentors of
villainy.
 |
| Jun Hamamura |
Like
Nakamura, director Tasaka was left-leaning politically, and the film
makes it very clear that Samé is driven to crime by poverty and the
merciless feudal system. Although most of Samé’s actions are
selfish ones, at one point he clearly takes sides when he attacks
some men escorting stocks of rice, liberating the food not for his
own benefit, but for all the starving poor to share. This scene is
also an example of several complex action sequences involving
numerous actors that Tasaka stages quite brilliantly. His usual
cinematographer at the time, Masahiko Iimura, makes effective use of
colour and widescreen, although I couldn’t help thinking that black
and white would have suited such dark material better. There’s also
a fitting score by one of Japan’s top film composers, Masaru Sato.
However, well worth seeing though it is, I wouldn’t personally make
any claims for this film as a lost masterpiece because I found it rather lacking in subtlety both in terms of story and performance, and I
didn’t buy Samé’s rather corny religious redemption at the end.
Thanks
to A.K.
If
you’d like to support this blog, you can Buy Me a Coffee.
