This existential tale of a conscienceless samurai consumed by ghosts of his own making is superbly acted and visually stunning. However, the film suffers from a plethora of coincidence and an ending seemingly calculated to frustrate.
In 1860, an old man prays for death so that his granddaughter Omatsu will be free of his burden. He has his wish granted--by ronin Ryunosuke Tsukue (Tatsuya Nakadai), who kills him.
The next day, Ryunosuke is to duel Utsugi (Ichiro Nakaya), a man nowhere near his equal who will be disgraced if he loses, and cause his family suffering. Utsugi's wife, Hama (Michiyo Aratama), comes to Ryunosuke in the night, trading her favors for Ryunosuke's promise to lose the duel. The next
day however, Utsugi vows to kill Ryunosuke, knowing of his wife's infidelity. Instead he dies, and his wife flies to Ryunosuke's side as he leaves town over the corpses of Utsugi's friends who were bent on revenge.
Two years later, Ryunosuke (now calling himself Ryutaro Yoshida) is one of a band of paid assassins. Wandering into the martial arts school of Toranosuke Shimada (Toshiro Mifune), he beats in a duel one of Shimada's student's, Utsugi's brother Hyoma (Yuzo Kayama)--although they don't recognize
each other. Later, Hyoma is smitten by a girl being trained locally as a servant. It's Omatsu, brought here by kindly thief Shichibei who found her grieving over her dead grandfather in the mountains.
After one successful assassination, Ryunosuke and his clan attempt another, unintentionally crossing swords with Shimada, who kills all but Ryunosuke and one cohort. Ryunosuke, set to duel Hyoma in the morning, finds his confidence shattered, and when Hama, after another in an endless series of
spats, draws a knife on him, he kills her.
Another year passes, and Hyoma--searching for the vanished Ryunosuke--happens upon Omatsu in another town. Oddly enough, she will be serving a party that night for Ryunosuke's men. While Hyoma waits outside for Ryunosuke to exit, the assassins inside plot double crosses against each other. Caught
eavesdropping, Omatsu is left alone with Ryunosuke and begins to see ghosts behind him. Already spooked, Ryunosuke discovers that Omatsu is the granddaughter of the man he killed; he flips out, slashing everything in sight, slaughtering dozens of his own men, and sustaining great damage in the
process.
Ending in a freezeframe of Ryunosuke coming at the camera, the film subverts every expectation. Seemingly a revenge movie, it leaves Hyoma twiddling his thumbs at the end, waiting for Ryunosuke to appear. Likewise the hoped-for duel between Nakadai and Mifune, two giants of samurai cinema, never
occurs. It's almost as if the film jammed in the camera before the climax.
But in truth, it's not a revenge movie at all. Scripted by Shinobu Hashimoto (RASHOMON, 1951), it's a psychological study of a man destroyed by his own corruption. By killing Utsugi he inherits Hama, a wicked, selfish woman who resents and curses him, and whom he despises (and ultimately kills) in
return. Utsugi's murder has also made him an eternal outcast--even the assassins don't trust him. Longing to return home, he is informed that his own father, on his deathbed and disgusted by his son's evilness, sent Hyoma out to kill him.
Tatsuya Nakadai is chillingly brilliant as the mercenary who enjoys evil for evil's sake while running from (and ultimately succumbing to) his own demons. At first seemingly emotionless, Ryunosuke is gradually revealed to be driven by bloodlust and suppressed fear. Ultimately Omatsu, the good girl
he left without a family, triggers his total breakdown. Voices from the past surround him; shadows of the dead traipse about the empty room; he hears the crying of his baby, clearly murdered after he killed the child's mother.
The staging of the fights is absolutely breathtaking: a slow travelling shot from above of Ryunosuke cutting down Utsugi's friends in the mist; Shimada in the snow doing the same to Ryunosuke's comrades; the 10 minutes of superbly choreographed bloodshed that close the film. Director Kihachi
Okamoto (SAMURAI ASSASSIN, RED LION, ZATOICHI MEETS YOJIMBO, all with Toshiro Mifune) isn't above a hoary visual pun (the camera moving away from Ryunosuke's first ravaging of Hama, coming to rest instead on a piston pumping in and out of a hole), but that's about the only lightness to be had
here. It's a grim and relentlessly downbeat story, willfully denying any closure or cathartic satisfaction at the end. (Graphic violence, sexual situation.) leave a comment
