Obscure Japanese Film #63
In the winter of 1901-02, a small squad and a larger regiment of soldiers try to find their way through the merciless Hakkoda mountains from opposite sides with the intention of meeting in the middle and establishing a new route to safeguard their supplies in the event of a Russian invasion. The two groups are led by Captain Tokushima (Ken Takakura) and Captain Kanda (Kinya Kitaoji); both men have the opportunity to decline the challenge but accept it against their better judgment due to fear of losing face. And so a tragedy is born out of the pride of men.
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| Ken Takakura |
I’m fascinated by tales of survival and love films shot in rugged locations, so I thought this would be right up my street, but I was disappointed for a number of reasons. Although the location photography is indeed impressive (the actors and crew were working in incredibly harsh conditions), Mount Hakkoda unfortunately has little else to recommend it and is far too long and drawn-out. It’s basically three hours of men being stupid, and no opportunity for overacting is missed - except by Ken Takakura, of course, who was incapable of such a thing. Kinya Kitaoji and Rentaro Mikuni also put in decent performances, but too many of the others unnecessarily shout every line of their dialogue in a ‘WHAT I’M SAYING IS REALLY IMPORTANT!’ kind of way. Perhaps this is overcompensation due to the utter lack of memorable characters in the film. Some scenes are also completely unconvincing; in one unintentionally funny sequence, a soldier goes mad, strips off all his clothes and promptly drops dead. We are told that the sweat on his body instantly froze when he stepped outside the shelter and into the freezing air, and that this is what killed him. Yeah, right. Another character supposedly bites off his own tongue to commit suicide, something which I also doubt is possible. Such nonsense might be more forgivable were it not for the fact that this is based on a true historical incident. But we are in movie-land here, which is also made clear when Kumiko Akiyoshi turns up as a beautiful young villager who guides the soldiers part of the way, putting them all to shame as she skips effortlessly through the snow while the men struggle and gasp for breath behind her. Other members of the all-star cast, such as Keiju Kobayashi and Tetsuro Tanba, are wasted in nothing roles.
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| Kumiko Akiyoshi |
Yasushi Akutagawa’s music score is unsubtle, sentimental and repetitive, which pretty much sums up the movie as well. Shinobu Hashimoto produced and wrote this (based on a novel by Jiro Nitta) and it was directed by Shiro Moritani, a former assistant of Akira Kurosawa. Talking of Kurosawa, if he had directed it, he would no doubt have improved the script, made the characters more colourful, insisted on a better music score and made the whole thing a far more profound and resonant study of man’s folly.
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