Obscure Japanese Film #123
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| Koji Yakusho |
This Shochiku production stars Koji Yakusho, well-known for his leading roles in international hits such as Shall We Dance? (1996), The Eel (1997) and, most recently, Perfect Days (2023). Here, he plays Tsugunosuke Kawai (1827-68), a senior samurai retainer preparing for civil war while simultaneously doing everything he can to prevent it, even though it means being called a coward by many of his peers as a result. The story is set in the years 1867-68 when the influence of America and Europe is beginning to make itself felt in Japan, and Kawai has been inspired in his neutral stance by the example of Switzerland. However, the film certainly has an ambivalent attitude towards the West as the opening narration suggests that everything would have been fine in Japan if only the Western world had left them alone. Indeed, Kawai himself is a rather contradictory character – despite sticking his neck out in the hopes of maintaining peace, he ends up gleefully mowing down his opponents with a Gatling gun! (Incidentally, although such a weapon may seem out of place in a samurai movie, it is a historical fact that Kawai purchased a Gatling gun, though whether he used it himself in battle I can’t say.)
The Pass is based on a 1968 novel by Ryotaro Shiba (1923-96), whose work also provided the basis for films such as Castle of Owls (1963), Assassination (1964), Hitokiri (1969) and Gohatto (1999). The film appears to be a faithful adaptation as far as one can tell without reading the book, which is yet to be translated into English (though some of Shiba’s work has been).
Kyoko Kagawa
The man responsible for the adaptation is writer-director Takashi Koizumi, a former assistant director to Akira Kurosawa who had made After the Rain (1999) from Kurosawa’s script after his mentor’s death. Among the cast are long-in-the-tooth Kurosawa veterans Tatsuya Nakadai (b.1932), Kyoko Kagawa (b.1931) and Hisashi Igawa (b.1936), though they are given nothing very challenging to do and their parts are cameos of the “wheel ‘em out for old times’ sake” variety. Still, we have to be thankful for any appearance by these greats of Japanese cinema these days.
Hisashi Igawa
The historical accuracy of the piece seems generally solid with the exception of the casting – Koji Yakusho, then 64, is playing a 40-year-old, while his former acting teacher Tatsuya Nakadai, then 87, plays Kawai’s boss, samurai lord Tadanori Makino (1844-75), who died at the age of 30! Perhaps wisely, no attempt has been made to make Nakadai look half a century younger – the filmmakers’ presumably thought that only a few history nerds would notice the discrepancy.
Tatsuya Nakadai
The Pass is often very impressive visually and looks like it must have been given a generous budget, with the large-scale battle scenes being especially well done. On the other hand, its quieter moments are sometimes a bit too fussy and picture-postcardy for their own good, with some scenes feeling pretty lifeless as a result. The music is also a mixed bag, varying from sentimental light classic piano to more dramatic and effective orchestration for the battle scenes. However, for me it is mainly in the script department that this film is lacking as, not only does it present us with a nostalgic, rose-tinted view of the past, but we have to suffer dialogue like, “Your samurai spirit will inspire countless others. You are our ideal. You shall live on in history!” For me at least, the film is ideologically dubious in the way it seems to lament the passing of feudalism. While it may be true that, under the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan enjoyed 260-odd years of peace and stability during the Edo period (1603-1868), this was only achieved by enforcing a policy of isolationism and a rigid social hierarchy. Such a situation may have been comfortable for the aristocracy, but was doubtless a lot less pleasant if you were one of the oppressed, and the film never shows us this side.
Takako Matsu as Kawai's wife, Suga
Despite these quibbles, it’s a shame that The Pass has yet to receive a proper release overseas. While uneven, its best bits make it worth seeing and it features an engaging performance by Yakusho in the lead. Kawai was also certainly an interesting figure worthy of a movie (I believe this was the first feature film in which he was the main character, though there had been TV dramas before).
The film’s release was delayed until 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For a more detailed synopsis, see Hayley Scanlon’s review here.
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