A fine and interesting film. In the seventeenth century a Japanese despot knows that there are plans for revolt. He orders the suspects to be arrested. One tries to hide himself at an uninvolved friend's house. The suspect is killed and his friend is arrested with the others and his wife is killed while resisting arrest. The friend escapes when fellow activists cause a diversion and first takes refuge with a kindly drunken gambler, a samurai who has pawned everything but his sword, and then gets involved in a new plot against the government. The plotters include a philosopher-statesman, his niece, a poor samurai with a large and devoted family and a mad monk with a taste for rape. It's notable that the peasants- who are supposed to benefit from the plot- aren't involved at all.
Technically the film uses widescreen superbly: conversations and monologues are shown in static shots, often upwards, of faces in middle distance or close-up, framed by doorways, furniture, swords, using black and white and light and shadow wonderfully. Action scenes are fluidly and swiftly depicted- the final fight, a literally long-running battle through paddy-fields and moats and the streets of a village as his bodyguards try to hustle the intended victim away- done with a mixture of in-close hand-held cameras and distant filming, with the fighting looking as disorganised and random as a real sword battle probably was.
The film's depiction of its background and characterisation too is well done. The leading villain depends on the support of the shogun for his power, so it is the shogun's heir that the conspirators want to kill. Equally, we watch his investigation- a civil servant who wants to ease the lot of the peasants is brought in because it's thought he must be involved, even though he isn't and we are shown the closeness between deadly enemies in a close-knit community- the investigator and the leading conspirator are former colleagues who can meet socially. People are tortured for unreliable information. The conspirators too are well-shown and their humanity comes through- indeed, like Melville's resistants in L' Armée Des Ombres, just continuing to exist as an organisation is their main achievement. We are shown their flaws- a coward who wants to turn the others in for the reward, the bragging monk who rapes and later murders the woman involved; the woman herself confesses she has lost faith in their purpose; the family man kills his wife and children before he goes out, knowing he will die himself, rather than leave them to starve. Finally, their attempt fails; it is the drunken gambler, the broken samurai, who finds his broken sword which the hero used in the battle, who finally kills the shogun's heir and drives the villain to madness.
Technically the film uses widescreen superbly: conversations and monologues are shown in static shots, often upwards, of faces in middle distance or close-up, framed by doorways, furniture, swords, using black and white and light and shadow wonderfully. Action scenes are fluidly and swiftly depicted- the final fight, a literally long-running battle through paddy-fields and moats and the streets of a village as his bodyguards try to hustle the intended victim away- done with a mixture of in-close hand-held cameras and distant filming, with the fighting looking as disorganised and random as a real sword battle probably was.
The film's depiction of its background and characterisation too is well done. The leading villain depends on the support of the shogun for his power, so it is the shogun's heir that the conspirators want to kill. Equally, we watch his investigation- a civil servant who wants to ease the lot of the peasants is brought in because it's thought he must be involved, even though he isn't and we are shown the closeness between deadly enemies in a close-knit community- the investigator and the leading conspirator are former colleagues who can meet socially. People are tortured for unreliable information. The conspirators too are well-shown and their humanity comes through- indeed, like Melville's resistants in L' Armée Des Ombres, just continuing to exist as an organisation is their main achievement. We are shown their flaws- a coward who wants to turn the others in for the reward, the bragging monk who rapes and later murders the woman involved; the woman herself confesses she has lost faith in their purpose; the family man kills his wife and children before he goes out, knowing he will die himself, rather than leave them to starve. Finally, their attempt fails; it is the drunken gambler, the broken samurai, who finds his broken sword which the hero used in the battle, who finally kills the shogun's heir and drives the villain to madness.