Obscure Japanese Film #269
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| Raizo Ichikawa |
Yutaro (Raizo Ichikawa), a prince whose father (also played by Ichikawa) was forced to commit suicide, masquerades as a ronin and uses his formidable skill with a sword to right a few wrongs he sees being perpetrated on his wanderings. One day, he takes an ornate box stolen by a pickpocket away from the thief and discovers that it contains a MacGuffin in the shape of a map. A disgraced clan are attempting to restore their fortunes but need the map to do it, so they enlist the help of the famous swordsman Hirate Miki (Kenjiro Uemura) to slay Yutaro. Meanwhile, Oyu (Masako Kishi) and Sayuri (Yoko Uraji) compete for Yutaro’s affections, but he seems more interested in Princess Tsu (Atsuko Kindaichi) even though she’s involved with the baddies…
This Daiei production was based on a novel by Renzaburo Shibata (1917-78), creator of the Nemuri Kyoshiro (or Sleepy Eyes of Death) series, the films of which also starred Raizo Ichikawa. The plot is pure hokum, but the film is well made, fast-paced and entertaining and looks a treat thanks largely to the superb widescreen black and white cinematography of veteran Kohei Sugiyama, who had shot such classics as A Page of Madness (1926) and Gate of Hell (1953). This was one of his final films before he passed away in 1960.
It’s difficult to think of anyone who looks more the part of the heroic samurai than Raizo Ichikawa does in this movie and the supporting cast also give a good account of themselves, especially Kenjiro Uemura, who manages to be even more dour than Shin Saburi in Hirate Miki (1951).
Kenjiro Uemura
The female lead, Atsuko Kindaichi, was appearing in a period film for the first time here, having debuted as a Daiei ‘New Face’ in 1957 and been kept very busy since. In 1960 she was cast in Shunkai Mizuho’s Sure-sure, which involved a bed scene with Hiroshi Kawaguchi, so she refused to do it and quit the business. Few would blame for that, although I don’t think it was specifically because it was Kawaguchi…
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| Atsuko Kindaichi |
Director Katsuhiko Tasaka was the younger brother of the better-known Tomotaka Tasaka and seems to have worked almost entirely in the chambara (sword fighting) genre. As this is pre-Yojimbo, there is no spurting blood or slashing sounds, just some rather clichéd music, but on the plus side, Tasaka delivers a memorably weird scene involving a giant talking Buddha statue and a dancing woman with impractically long sleeves.
A note on the title:
I’m not sure the film has an official English title, but it’s sometimes referred to as Yutaro’s Secret Story or Yutaro’s Secret Sword; the former seems to be a reasonable reflection of the Japanese title, in which 巷談 (kodan) is generally translated as ‘rumour’.
DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)
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