* Patrick Galloway’s Stray Dogs and Lone Wolves is a detailed guide to samurai films, and highly recommended as further reading.
THE DIRECTORS
AKIRA KUROSAWA
The most internationally famous and acclaimed Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa is the master filmmaker responsible for some of the finest films ever made. He started his film career for Toho as a writer and assistant director in 1936, and worked his way up to the position of director. Beginning with the excellent Rashomon, Kurosawa made one classic film after the other, throughout the 1950s and 60s. These films were immensely appealing to international audiences, and this led to Kurosawa being criticised in his own country for making ‘un-Japanese’ films, designed to appeal to foreigners eager for orientalism. Kurosawa vigorously protested these criticisms, and rightly so. While he was more influenced by sources outside of Japan (such as Shakespeare and John Ford) than other Japanese directors, his films were also carefully constructed around Japanese artistic conventions. It is perhaps this combination of influences that makes Kurosawa’s work so entertaining and accessible to world audiences.
Kurosawa’s films are often moving stories about the individual, told with beautiful cinematography. In his long career, the Emperor, as he was nicknamed, proved he could make high-quality films in any genre. Whether it was romantic dramas like Scandal, medical dramas like Red Beard or cop films such as Stray Dog, Kurosawa always excelled, creating instant classics.
Kurosawa’s influence on samurai films cannot be overstated. His wonderful Seven Samurai signified a new type of film for the genre, and the immensely successful Yojimbo and Sanjuro were such influential films that they completely transformed the genre in the 1960s.
HIROSHI INAGAKI
Another major Toho Studios director, Hiroshi Inagaki’s work is also quite well known internationally. Inagaki specialised in historical epics, telling the stories of famous samurai and daimyo from times past. He excelled in the epic filmmaking that such projects required, as evidenced by films including Samurai Trilogy, The 47 Ronin and Samurai Banners. Inagaki was also very adept at filming large-scale battles, utilising great numbers of extras. His films are impressive for their epic scale, but also have a simple elegance about them.
MASAKI KOBAYASHI
A director famous for his distinctly anti-authoritarian films, Masaki Kobayashi made some of the most harrowingly honest samurai films; unlike many of his contemporaries, Kobayashi was much less sentimental about bushido, and was unafraid to show the potential for cruelty in the samurai’s code of unquestioning loyalty and obedience. His films are usually concerned with the individual’s struggle against corrupt authority, and never fail to be compelling viewing.
Drafted into the Japanese army during World War Two, Kobayashi served in Manchuria. He disapproved strongly of the war, and constantly refused promotion in the military. As the war came to an end, Kobayashi spent a year as a P.O.W. When back in Japan he returned to work for Shochiku Studios, utilising his wartime experiences to make The Human Condition trilogy, which told the harrowing story of a pacifist drafted into the Japanese army during World War Two. These films made Tatsuya Nakadai famous, and Kobayashi and Nakadai would continue to work together in a very successful partnership.
Unfortunately, Kobayashi’s anti-authoritarian themes were not popular with Shochiku Studios, a very conservative company. Although a very talented director, Kobayashi made only 22 films.
Although not as influential as the work of Akira Kurosawa, Kobayashi’s samurai films are distinct for their honesty and lack of sentimentalism; Hara-kiri especially shows the cruel realities of the bushido code. They are not only distinct in thematic content, but also for their extremely high quality. His direction is always sublime, and his choice of subject matter compelling and moving. His Hara-kiri and Samurai Rebellion rank alongside the work of Kurosawa as two of the finest samurai films ever made.
HIDEO GOSHA
Hideo Gosha originally worked in television, starting as a reporter with Nippon Television in 1953. He eventually secured a position as a director and producer with Fuji Television, where he created a series of successful action TV shows during the 1950s. One of these shows, Three Outlaw Samurai, impressed Shochiku Studios so much that they hired Gosha to make a feature-length version. Gosha continued to work with Shochiku Studios, directing many films throughout the 1960s and 70s, mainly of the samurai and yakuza (gangster) genres.
As Patrick Galloway has noted, Gosha blended elements of Kurosawa and Kobayashi’s films with his fast-paced TV-style direction, to create a unique style of his own. This results in highly entertaining films, distinct from those of other master directors. Gosha’s films are tremendous, and a wonderful addition to the samurai film genre.
Unfortunately, although famous and much loved in Japan, Gosha’s films are yet to be widely available elsewhere, unlike the other directors profiled here. At the time of writing the Criterion release of Sword of the Beast on DVD is the only example of a large distributor with a Gosha film in their catalogue. This is a terrible shame, as Gosha’s films are of a very high quality, and would be thoroughly enjoyed by international audiences. Three Outlaw Samurai, Hunter in the Dark and Bandits vs. Samurai Squadron are all available (with English subtitles) from importers, who source their stock from Asian distributors. Unfortunately, the quality of these DVDs is often inferior to those of the larger distributors (such as the Criterion Collection in the USA or Eastern Eye in Australia), but on the plus side they are a lot cheaper. It is definitely worth tracking these films down.
KIHACHI OKAMOTO
Like Masaki Kobayashi, Kihachi Okamoto was drafted into the Japanese army during World War Two, an experience which undoubtedly had an effect on his films in later years.
Beginning work for Toho Studios in 1947, Okamoto slowly worked his way up the ladder, directing his first film in 1958. Although he showed skill in directing films of various genres, Okamoto began to specialise in action films. He had a special talent for action scenes, which he was able to inject with a wonderful sense of rhythm and pacing, without over-stylising the violence.
Like Kobayashi, Okamoto was sceptical of the bushido code in his samurai films, but not in Kobayashi’s anti-authoritarian way. Okamoto’s films focus more on the individual, rather than the individual vs. authority. His samurai films often resemble cautionary tales, showing the ultimately negative and self-destructive results of leading a violent lifestyle. The best examples of this are the very gritty Samurai Assassin and Sword of Doom and the black comedy, Kill!. Okamoto’s films combine his well-paced direction with moving subject matter, creating a result which clearly places him among the best samurai film directors.
THE STARS
TOSHIRO MIFUNE
Toshiro Mifune is not only the most well-known performer to appear in a samurai film, but also the most famous actor to emerge from Japanese cinema.
Mifune’s acting career began with an audition for Toho Studios in 1946. Having served in the Japanese army during World War Two, Mifune found himself in need of work, and decided to use his military experience as an aerial photographer to attempt to secure work as a camera operator at one of the major studios in Tokyo. There are a number of different accounts as to how Mifune ended up auditioning as an actor; one claims he did so in the hope of later transferring to become a camera operator, another that he was to be interviewed for a position as a cameraman, but auditioned as an actor by mistake (which certainly makes a better story). Whatever the case, the audition process angered Mifune. He felt demeaned by requests to show different emotions and flew into a wild rage, the expressive nature of which impressed Kajiro Yamamoto, one of Toho’s leading directors at the time, and an upcoming talent, Akira Kurosawa.
Mifune’s angry audition secured him work as an actor, beginning with roles in comedies and action films. His long association with Akira Kurosawa began with Drunken Angel, in which his originally small part was expanded into a co-starring role. Mifune’s rel
ationship with Kurosawa continued throughout the 1940s, with leading roles in classic films such as Stray Dog and Rashomon. His explosive entry to the samurai film genre came with Kurosawa’s masterpiece, Seven Samurai. Mifune brought a level of energy and expressiveness to all of these films, which Kurosawa was able to exploit to maximum effect. Between 1948 and 1965 Mifune had lead roles in 16 of Kurosawa’s films, each one an instant classic.
Mifune also worked with many other Japanese directors, and as his films were successfully distributed internationally he secured roles in productions from other countries, most notably Hell in the Pacific and the hugely popular American samurai TV series Shogun, in 1980. He also started his own production company in the 1960s.
Toshiro Mifune had an enormous influence on the samurai film genre. Most of his characters, in particular Sanjuro (Yojimbo) and Kikuchiyo (Seven Samurai), were instant icons, and Mifune’s unique portrayal was quickly copied by other actors. Only Shintaro Katsu and Tatsuya Nakadai come close to having the same level of influence.
TATSUYA NAKADAI
Tatsuya Nakadai is best known among fans of samurai films for his appearances in some of the genre’s best films, such as Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Hara-kiri, Kill! and, perhaps his greatest of all, Sword of Doom.
Born in Tokyo in 1932, Nakadai worked in theatre before making the transition to film in 1953. His work with the Shingeki movement, a modern (rather than traditional) theatre group, rendered Nakadai with considerable acting experience before he was discovered by film director Masaki Kobayashi. Working for Shochiku Studios, Kobayashi used Nakadai in many of his films, most notably in The Human Condition, a challenging trilogy telling the story of a conscientious objector drafted into the Japanese army during World War Two.
By 1960 Nakadai had appeared in numerous Shochiku films, but his greatest samurai film roles were yet to come. Interestingly, Nakadai makes a very brief appearance in the best-known samurai film of all, Seven Samurai. In the early stages of the film, Nakadai is one of the samurai glimpsed striding through town.
Throughout the 1960s, Nakadai gave many memorable performances in samurai films such as Hara-kiri, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Sword of Doom, Kill! and Samurai Rebellion. These roles ranged from tortured anti-heroes to sadistic villains, and Nakadai’s excellent performance in each is testament to his impressive range.
Nakadai continues to work. He runs his own actors studio, Mumeijuko, and also appears in films, on television and on the stage.
SHINTARO KATSU
Most famous for his role as Zatoichi the blind swordsman, Shintaro Katsu was a huge star in Japan throughout the 1960s and 70s. Katsu was born into the acting profession, his family a successful kabuki (traditional Japanese theatre) troupe. In the 1950s he made the transition to cinema, working for Daiei Studios. His role as Zatoichi in the 1960s made him immensely popular, and the Zatoichi series continued into the 1970s and 80s. Katsu’s warm and charismatic performance as the blind swordsman endeared him to audiences, but he was also capable of many other roles, such as the cruel villain he played in Incident at Blood Pass.
Katsu formed his own production company, which produced the popular Lone Wolf and Cub series, starring his older brother, Tomisaburo Wakayama.
THE INFLUENCE OF SAMURAI FILMS ON WORLD CINEMA
The influence the samurai film has had on world cinema is unquestionable. Themes from samurai films have been adopted both directly and indirectly by Hollywood; the never-ending American Ninja series of films (1985–1993) and recent would-be blockbuster The Last Samurai (2003) are both good examples of this. The relationship samurai films have with Hollywood’s most famous genre, the western, is a bit more complicated. Some classic westerns owe their origins to samurai films: Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai was remade as The Magnificent Seven (1960), while Yojimbo was remade by Sergio Leone in Italy as A Fistful of Dollars (1964), beginning the popular spaghetti western genre. It should be noted, however, that Kurosawa, the man who invented the modern samurai film, lists John Ford, the master of the classic western, as one of his influences. Kurosawa was able to create something unique, using Ford’s films as one of his many inspirations. His work would then have a similar effect on directors of westerns in the 1960s. The samurai and western genres clearly share a very close relationship, but are distinct enough that they should remain separate.
The influence of samurai films in Hollywood was not limited to westerns. Many contemporary directors have a great deal of admiration for samurai films, and this has influenced their work in a variety of other genres. George Lucas’s original Star Wars film, A New Hope (1977), was inspired in part by Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress. Similarly, Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Volume 1 (2003) and Volume 2 (2004) borrow heavily from samurai films, specifically Lady Snowblood. It is not only mainstream American films which have been influenced by the genre. Jim Jarmusch, a highly acclaimed alternative director, made his own tribute to samurai films, titled Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), an interesting film placing the samurai’s unique moral code in the context of a modern American mob assassin.
BEGINNINGS AND THE 1950s
The samurai film evolved from some of the earliest Japanese films, which were filmed kabuki theatre performances. A traditional form of Japanese theatre, kabuki features carefully choreographed movements set to music and singing. Although graceful and beautiful, kabuki choreography is highly stylised, and lacks the sense of realism that films are able to convey.
It was another form of theatre choreography which would lead to the birth of the samurai film. The Shinkokugeki school of popular theatre, which had been around since 1912, distinguished itself with realistic and athletic swordplay, a stark contrast to the slow and graceful choreography of the filmed kabuki performances. The more realistic and faster-paced stage fencing had proven popular with audiences, and Makino Shozo, a highly successful producer of filmed kabuki performances, saw the potential of the Shinkokugeki productions and began to make films using their choreography and actors. Throughout the 1920s and 30s Japanese filmmakers began to explore the full potential of film as a medium, and the filmed kabuki performances were gradually replaced by narratives which were actually designed for the screen, rather than for the stage. Among these films were the early samurai films, which were popular with Japanese audiences. It would take another 20 years for the genre to be discovered by international audiences.
Samurai films suffered greatly in the 1940s and early 50s. Interestingly, they were suppressed by both the World War Two militaristic Japanese government, who considered them a useless form of entertainment, and the American post-war occupation censors, who maintained the often violent samurai films would inspire feudalistic sentiments among the Japanese. This caused a large decline in the production of samurai films, which was only reversed when the Japanese production companies were completely released from American censorship in the early 1950s.
One company quick to take advantage of this was Toei, an already successful studio. They began to mass produce samurai films, with great success, and were quickly copied by other studios. Unfortunately the years of suppression and censorship had left their mark on the genre. As Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto† has pointed out, many of the films made in the 1950s were extremely formulaic, and revolved around simplistic battles between good and evil. Also, they had restored the kabuki choreography for the sword-fighting scenes, resulting in very slow, dance-like choreography.
There were, however, some excellent samurai films made during the 1950s. Many directors tried to break the predictable formula which had such a tight grip on the genre. Hiroshi Inagaki was one such director, who created his highly acclaimed Samurai Trilogy during the 1950s. Telling the exciting story of master swordsman Miyamoto Musashi (an historical figure), Inagaki’s films utilised swift and realistic choreography.
Akira Kurosawa was another innovator, and is the master filmmaker who would have the most influence on the genre. His 1954 film, Seven Samurai, was the beginnings of the samurai film as we know
it today. As Yoshimoto has pointed out, in Seven Samurai Kurosawa created a very different kind of samurai film. Working for Toho, a company which had not made many samurai films, and didn’t feel constrained by the existing formula, Kurosawa injected a level of realism and detail into his film which clearly set it apart. Character motivations were carefully thought out at the scripting stage, and every detail of the production design was researched to convey the sense of realism clearly lacking in many 1950s samurai films. The battle scenes in the film were also brutally realistic, with characters battling feverishly for their survival, rather than engaging in symbolic dance. Kurosawa continued to make high-quality samurai films throughout the 1950s, with Throne of Blood and The Hidden Fortress.
The work of both Inagaki and Kurosawa was well received overseas, and with their films the samurai film genre found an international audience.
Seven Samurai (1954)
Japanese Title: Shichinin no samurai
Directed by: Akira Kurosawa
Written by: Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni, Akira Kurosawa
Produced by: Sojiro Motoki
Edited by: Akira Kurosawa
Cinematography: Asakazu Nakai
Cast: Takashi Shimura (Kambei), Toshiro Mifune (Kikuchiyo), Yoshio Inaba (Gorobei), Seiji Miyaguchi (Kyuzo), Minoru Chiaki (Heihachi), Daisuke Kato (Shichiroji), Isao Kimura (Katsushiro), Keiko Tsushima (Shino), Yukiko Shimazaki (Rikichi’s wife), Kamatari Fujiwara (Manzo), Yoshio Kosugi (Mosuke), Bokuzen Hidari (Yohei), Yoshio Tsuchiya (Rikichi), Kokuten Kodo (Gisaku)
Samurai Films Page 2