Obscure Japanese Film #241
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| Rentaro Mikuni |
In the last years of the Tokugawa shogunate, six people are sentenced to exile for attacking two arrogant British VIPs who had broken etiquette by going through a torii on horseback, beaten a Japanese man who tried to stop them, and entered a shrine without removing their boots. Government official Aoki (Rentaro Mikuni) objects to the sentence and resigns in protest, choosing to become a ronin rather than serve a regime he does not believe in. He shacks up with former prostitute O-Tatsu (Michiyo Aratama) and spends his days lying around drinking sake until one day he’s approached by the Shinchogumi, who want to expel the foreigners from Japan and are seeking his assistance. Reluctant at first, he eventually decides to help and, in the process, meets rich man’s daughter Tae (Michiko Saga), with whom he falls in love…
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| Michiyo Aratama and Mikuni |
This 123-minute period drama is one of the more ambitious productions to have come out of Nikkatsu studios. Adapted by regular Kurosawa collaborator Ryuzo Kikushima together with the obscure Michio Otsuke (whose only other credit appears to be a 1956 movie about kamikaze pilots*), it was based on an untranslated novel of the same name by Minoru Nakano (1901-73) serialised in the Sunday Mainichi magazine in 1955, the same year the film was produced. Nakano does not seem to have been an especially well-regarded writer, although Mikio Naruse made two films in 1935 based on his work, The Actress and The Poet and Wife! Be Like a Rose! His Japanese Wikipedia page states that he co-founded an organisation named the Cultural Patriotic Association during the war years and fell out with his friend the comic actor Roppa Furukawa when the latter criticised Nakano’s support for the war.
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| Michiyo Aratama |
The obvious anti-foreigner sentiment in The Samurai of Edo would have prevented such a film being made during the years of American occupation (which ended in 1952). Although the behaviour of the British men at the beginning of the film is outrageous, it’s an entirely fictional incident as far as I’m aware. The film’s xenophobia, which waxes nostalgic for the days when all the gaijin were kept out of Japan, may well be one reason why it’s not better known.
In regard to the main cast, there’s a strong performance from Rentaro Mikuni in the leading role even if – as was typical for him – he’s perhaps a little too unsympathetic to invest in emotionally. At one point, Mikuni gets to beat the crap out of a mob of samurai single-handed, something which he pulls off very well. Given his famous pursuit of realism – also evident in the scene in which he spits blood out of his mouth – one can only feel sorry for the actors playing his opponents. The female stars fare less well. Michiyo Aratama, who’s probably best-remembered these days for her role in The Human Condition (1959-61), gives a better performance than her doormat role deserves, while Michiko Saga (daughter of Isuzu Yamada and star of The Mad Fox) looks pretty enough but is defeated by her thinly-written part.
Photographed by Kazue Nagatsuka, a veteran from the silent days who later became known for his work with Seijun Suzuki, it’s a good-looking and well-made film which also has a decent score by Yojimbo composer Masaru Sato, even if there’s a little too much of it. There’s also a little too much of the film itself in my view, as I can’t say that the two-hours exactly flew by… Still, if you’re a fan of jidaigeki of this period, I would say check it out if you get the chance as there are certainly some things to enjoy here.
This is actually the first film I’ve seen by director Eisuke Takizawa, who had been an actor in the silent days before turning to directing in 1928; he subsequently made 84 films before passing away in 1965. His only brush with international recognition came with a Golden Bear nomination at the 1958 Berlin Film Festival for Byakuya no yojo (aka The Temptress and The Monk). Anyway, based on the evidence of The Samurai of Edo, he may be worth investigating further as its flaws are mostly in the material itself rather than the handling of it, which is more than merely competent throughout.
The original title references the Japanese saying 一寸の虫にも五分の魂 (issun no mushi ni mo gobu no tamashii), which can be translated as ‘even little worms have souls’, ‘a tiny insect also has a spirit’, etc, or – more literally – ‘even an insect measuring 1 sun (about 3 cm) has a soul (heart) measuring half that size, or 5 bu (about 1.5 cm)’ [Google AI Overview etymology] or ‘it is said that even an insect less than an inch in size has a soul equal to half its body length’ [imidas.jp translated by Google].
* Nake, Nihon kokumin: Saigo no sentoki (‘Cry, Japanese People: The Last Fighter Plane’)
Film at Amazon Prime Japan (no English subtitles)
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