Anti-Samurai

The two Japanese action films HARAKIRI and THE SWORD OF DOOM have numerous things in common. They both star Natsuya Nakadai; both were written by Shinobu Hashimoto; and both are more or less anti-samurai movies. Thus they become test cases about authorial power. Who or what is the determining consciousness of the films' tone and meaning? Is it the star, and his attendant public persona? Is it the writer, who in this case also wrote many of Kurosawa's films? Is it the genre itself, which dictates certain conventions, or the audience, which demands replication with slight variations? Or is it the director, in this case Masaki Kobayashi and Kihachi Okamoto, respectively?

HARAKIRI (The Criterion Collection No. 302, 1962, two discs, $39.95, August 23, 2005) is a grim, austere, super serious masterpiece. Released by Shochiku in 1962, HARAKIRI has the clean, sharp look that black and white films acquired in the early 1960s, lending support to its austerity and its thwarting of audience expectations.

Kobayashi, who like Kubrick and Welles didn't make a vast number of films, was something akin to the Stanley Kramer of his time, or rather, more like his natural heir, Oliver Stone, mixing social protest messages with extreme violence. His anti-war trilogy THE HUMAN CONDITION is considered his masterpiece but in HARAKIRI he took on a then (and still) beloved genre and exposed what he found stifling and corrupt and anti-life about its codes and ethos. Though it does provide satisfying revenge kicks, the ending is "artier" than the typical samurai film, in that within the world of the film knowledge of what happened has been suppressed.

In the film's beautiful and methodical, almost quiet opening, one Hanshiro Tsugumo (Nakadai) arrives at the headquarters of the Iyi clan. It's 1630, in the early days of the relatively peaceful Tokugawa period which also saw the disempowering of numerous rival clans. Tsugumo is a victim of this "reform," a ronin, who has been reduced to bamboo hat and shade-making. He has come to the Iyi abode to request leave to commit seppuku on the grounds.

His contact in the compound does the samurai equivalent of rolling his eyes and while giving his consent, tells Tsugumo the cautionary tale of another masterless samurai who arrived in the recent past with the same request. Unfortunately, the Iyi elders determined that this samurai was bluffing in order to get a handout. The elders decided to teach him and all other roaming samurai a lesson by letting his proceed, only to discover that this samurai had replaced his sword blades with bamboo, having sold off the metal.

After this gruesome, gripping story with the story unfolds, Tsugumo tells his own tale, which reveals that he has a previously unstated connection with the previous suicide. These two successive tales culminate in Tsugumo deriving bloody satisfaction from the arrogant law-hobbled clan members.

In its deliberate pace and uncompromising narrative HARAKIRI is also a masterpiece, and in a sense cruelly undercuts typical samurai film expectations are most turns: it has a complex narrative; it is mostly talk; the codes that usually make samurai films attractive are here portrayed as hollow and conservative; and the action scenes are more like something out of Bresson, rigid and non-theatrical and misdirecting. Some of Kobayashi's points are perhaps a tad obvious. For example the film opens with an empty suit of samurai armour, a heavy simple of the "empty" principles of samurai life as about to be revealed by the film itself. Later, Tsugumo rather blatantly knocks it over, and the film ends with a matching shot of the armour back in place, Tsugumo's rage erased from history. But it appears that balancing political points and action and meaning in visual terms is a near-impossible task in popular commercial cinema, as Kramer himself learned to the detriment of his posthumous reputation.

The first disc begins with an optional video intro by Japan scholar Donald Richie who successfully lays out the important aspects of the film for newcomers to its harsh aesthetic. This first disc also includes the theatrical trailer. The restored wide screen transfer (2.35:1, enhanced) is beautiful, with a mono track that is audible with occasional shredding in the higher registers.

The extras on the second disc kick off with a video interview (9:07) with the reclusive Kobayashi conducted by his colleague Masahiro Shinoda in front of the Japan director's guild in 1993. Next is "A Golden Age," a 2005 interview with Hakadai (14:29). Both brief interviews cover the essence of the film and their careers. "Masterless Samurai: Shinobu Hashimoto on HARAKIRI" (12:52) is a 2005 video interview with the writer, who explains that in its circuitous route to the screen HARAKIRI originally began as a Kurosawa film that traced one day in the life of a samurai. The prolific Hashimoto later used elements from HARAKIRI in Okamoto's SAMURAI ASSASSIN, according to Patrick Galloway's STRAY DOGS AND LONE WOLVES: THE SAMURAI FILM HANDBOOK (Stone Bridge Press, 235 pages, $19.95, ISBN 1 880656 93 0). Hashimoto wrote eight of Kurosawa's films, samurai and non-samurai, and scores of other films. I get the impression that screenwriting in Japan is drastically different from the way it is in Hollywood. In any case, Hashimoto's numerous scripts have a diversity that anonymously expanded the range of the directors he worked for.

The second disc also contains a poster gallery. HARAKIRI comes in a dual disc box with a 32-page insert with cast and crew credits, DVD transfer information, chapter titles, an essay by Joan Mellen, and a 1972 interview with Kobayashi.

Hakadai, who looks weathered and world weary in HARAKIRI also appears in THE SWORD OF DOOM (The Criterion Collection No. 280, 1965, $29.95, March 15, 2005). Hakadai worked with all the top samurai film directors, especially Kurosawa, from SEVEN SAMURAI to KAGEMUSHA. It's difficult to find any kind of auteur like consistency in an actor's career, especially in the studio era. A modern top actor like Tom Cruise can show a thematic consistency (remember his recent "masks" period?) that goes beyond simple genre issues.

Instead, ultimately, SWORD OF DOOM is more "like" a Okamoto film than a Hakadai or a Hashimoto film. And you can tell the difference between Kobayashi and Okamoto within the first few frames of SWORD, which begins with a seemingly irrational act of violence against an old man praying on a hilltop. The image has the grainy, contrasty look of late '50s Japanese films and much more variety in set ups and transitions between scenes (I see a tad bit of Hitchcock influence in Okamoto's transitions).

Based on a long running unfinished serial by Sanezumi Fujimoto published between 1913 and his death in 1941, one that had been adapted before, this version of SWORD OF DOOM is posited as a portrait of evil. What goes on in the head of the powerful "bad guy" you might find in other samurai films? Hakadai plays Ryunosuke, who apparently kills people for random practice. The plot of SWORD is complex and has numerous intertwined characters who can be hard to keep straight and some of the relationships between them are opaque. In fact, the movie doesn't even end; it just stops, in a freeze frame in the middle of a battle scene. For the full story from the novel one must go to Kenji Misumi's earlier trilogy SATAN'S SWORD.

The chaos of the narrative does not detract from the intense visual and action style. Toshiro Mifune also stars as a competing martial arts master. In a typical samurai film they would meet in battle, but Okamoto keeps that at bay, like Kobayashi denying the audience a typical thrill in preference to pondering the conventions of genre plots.

SWORD OF DOOM comes what passes at Criterion as a bare bones disc. It's an excellent black and white transfer (2.35:1, enhanced) and mono sound, but lacks even the trailer. There is, however, an eight-page insert with cast and crew credits, DVD transfer information, chapter titles, and an informative background essay by Geoffrey O'Brien.

Letters

From Chris Van Nevel:

"If you want to see the SKELETON KEY TV spot again just go to the official website (you need Flash). Go to the media section and click on TV spots. There are three spots and you can clearly see that the one you mentioned is the best. I'm glad that it's on the web now so I don't have to wait to see it again on TV. It's certainly one of the most effective trailers (TV or theatrical) that I have seen in quite a while. I'm glad that someone else was so taken by it as I was. I'm sure that the movie won't live up to the promise of another SIXTH SENSE or ROSEMARY'S BABY, but I hope at least someone in the advertising department of the studios takes note on how well this trailer was put together. Kudos to whomever's idea this was."

From Greg W. Garrett:

"I was surprised not to see any discussion regarding the (rumor perhaps) possibility that the special edition/super deluxe/two DVD set would include full(er) length adaptations of the three books that were shot. Was I just hearing the voices again (I hate those things sometimes), or is there any truth to this? Here is the link to the SIN CITY panel discussion from the San Diego Comic Con way back when, the very last blurb on the page (I think) mentions the special DVD."

From Sean Burns:

"I rented SIN CITY yesterday and was quite happy with it. I was planning on holding out for the inevitable deluxe DVD, but this one will do nicely until then (especially at the $15.99 sale price I’ve been seeing). The main thing that will get my $$$ for a deluxe version is Rodriguez’s oft mentioned extended versions of the individual segments. Since the film hit theatres, Rodriguez has been saying that there will be a DVD with the option of watching extended versions of each segment separately from the rest of the film. That feature and the video diary he filmed of Tarantino’s day on the set will probably make the sale. Of course, whether or not that actually happens is another story. I’m still waiting for the many uncut, integrated version of KILL BILL that have been rumoured for so long."

From Alfred Ramirez:

"There is a better version of SIN CITY coming — but I have to disagree with you on your love for this movie. I also contend that it's the trailer that spurred interest in this movie from me. I had been anxiously waiting to see this movie and had counted down the days till its opening. I read an early review in VARIETY and hoped it was wrong when it said that it missed the mark. I went to see it on opening day and was torn in two. The movie fan in me loved every second of it. The film critic was severely disappointed. I am a huge fan of film noir and I agreed wholeheartedly with the VARIETY review. It basically said that the filmmakers had some really great source material yet failed to use it. I haven't read the comic, but I know noir when I see it. All of the scenes seemed to exist only for itself and not for the audience. You could see the emotion, but you couldn't feel the weight of it. Tarantino directed the only good scene. You felt everything in that scene. And I hated the casting of Bruce Willis. I think this character needed a Lee Marvin type and not Willis. He wasn't hardened enough. He was too fresh. I may be the only guy who feels this way, but I hope there are more."

And incidentally, if you are interested in KILL BILL, you might find my new book, KILL BILL: AN UNOFFICIAL CASEBOOK useful. It is now available in fine bookstores everywhere, or from Amazon.

Not only that, I've got a new book coming out in October (fingers crossed) on an aspect of film noir I call film soleil, titled simply FILM SOLEIL. It is sure to alter film criticism as we know it to its very core. Order it now!

And if you are interested in what I sound like, I can be heard on KBOO radio (90.7 FM) the second and the fourth Wednesday of the month, at 9 AM in the morning (Pacific Standard Time) on Ed Goldberg's show MOVIE TALK along with Dawn Taylor. It's available via streaming audio (in 20 Kbps Stereo). The next broadcast is Wednesday, August 24th, at 9 AM.

COMING SOON:RED EYE, MY SUMMER OF LOVE, REMINGTON STEEL and other TV mystery shows, many STAR TREKS, and more!

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