The Fir Tree Remains /樅ノ木は残った / Momino ki ha nokotta (1983)

Obscure Japanese Film #69

Tatsuya Nakadai

 

In this Fuji TV movie, Tatsuya Nakadai stars as Kai Harada (1619-71), a samurai magistrate involved in the Daté Uproar (aka the Kanbun Incident), a factional squabble which erupted into violence when the young head of the Daté clan, Tsunamune Daté, was exiled as a punishment for debauchery and replaced by a 2-year-old. It was rumoured that Tsunamune’s punishment was a ruse by the shogunate, who wanted to weaken the power of the feudal lords. 

The Fir Tree Remains is based on an untranslated novel of the same name by Shugoro Yamamoto, a favourite writer of Akira Kurosawa, whose films Sanjuro, Red Beard and Dodes’ka-den were all based on Yamamoto stories. Yamamoto was also a favourite of Yasuko Miyazaki, the former actress who married Tatsuya Nakadai and later became a screenwriter under the name of Tomoe Ryu. Her first script had been a television adaptation of Yamamoto’s Tsuri shinobu back in 1966, while her screenplay for Masaki Kobayashi’s Inn of Evil was based on another of his novels, which she re-adapted for television in 1982 as Jigoku no okite and later as a stage play.

Here we have a complex story to tell in 90 minutes and one that I can’t say I found terribly engaging, although it’s certainly got a few things going for it. One of several period dramas Nakadai made for television under the direction of Akira Inoue around this time, for a 1983 TV movie, it’s surprisingly well-lit and photographed. The acting is also pretty decent on the whole, with Nakadai’s confident restraint being especially effective as the unflappable Kai Harada, who – like the fir tree in his garden – keeps his own counsel while those around him are (literally) losing their heads. According to Japanese Wikipedia, Harada had usually been depicted as a scheming villain prior to Yamamoto’s story; here, he’s portrayed as a sympathetic character with pure motives. 

Eitaro Ozawa

 

Also popping up among the cast are Eitaro Ozawa, one of Nakadai’s acting teachers from his student days, and a young Koji Yakusho, one of his students from his teaching days. 

Some of the music’s a bit clichéd and the subtitles are sometimes a bit odd (“I am sorry about this ruckus. Go away please.”), but on the whole I’d say this is worth a look for Nakadai fans. 

Yamamoto’s novel had previously been filmed for the cinema in 1962 by Kenji Misumi under the title Aobajo no oni (Aoba Castle Demon) in a version starring Kazuo Hasegawa, while other television adaptations were made in 1964, 1970 (with Mikijiro Hira), 1990 and 2010. 

Thanks to Samurai vs. Ninja for making this available on YouTube here.