After many recommendations I finally watched this movie, directed by Kihachi Okamoto, a fairly well known Japanese director (although not as famous as some of his contemporaries like Akira Kurosawa and Masaki Kobayashi). The movie was perfect in almost every aspect; my favorites being the cinematography, shot composition and of course Tatsuya Nakadai’s acting. In this movie Nakadai (Harakiri, The Human condition, Samurai Rebellion, Kagemusha, Ran etc…) portrays a seemingly emotionless and exceptionally powerful samurai, Ryunosuke Tsukue, whose fighting style is characterized as evil and cruel. Tsukue throughout the movie, for motives that are never made clear (other than perhaps his pride) ends up killing several people, making many enemies in the process, until in the end he descends to madness and attacks his own men in a frenzy.
From the very start of the film, I was greatly puzzled by the protagonist. I could not help but feel that he was not a simple character but a symbol, representing something bigger than himself. Many reviews that I read online show him as a heartless sociopath that kills because he’s evil, or for pleasure etc… Though it might appear, on the surface, to be the case, especially given Nakadai’s performance (with an blank stare that suggests lack of any emotion whatsoever), I disagree with this interpretation. Although he might be evil, simply citing that as a sole reason for his actions in the movie, is in my opinion incomplete – and I think this movie is trying to say much more than that. What suggests this is the fact that throughout the film he never, ever kills without reason (of course excluding his own men at the end when he goes totally mad). There is always a justification or at the very least an explanation for his killings. If I remember correctly the only people that he kills are: the old man on the mountain, his opponent at the duel, most of his opponent’s soldiers (or clan-men, whatever they are called), and in the end his mistress. It is implied that he has killed more people for money as a paid ronin, but I think only these murders are shown on screen. I’ll go over all of them.
The old pilgrim on the mountain is praying for death and Tsukue appears as if from nowhere (looking like a ghost against the bright background of the sky) and grants him his wish. The opponent at the duel he kills in self defense (as he explains to the judge). The same goes for killing all those samurai right after the duel – and here in fact he tries to avoid bloodshed by stating that they should hold no grudge against him. Lastly he kills his mistress right after she tries to kill him (and furthermore she asks to be killed – although it seemed inevitable at the time). So I claim that he was not ‘just a sociopath’ as is the common interpretation. But what is he then?
At first I thought of him as a ghost, a messenger of death or something analogous in japanese culture (mainly suggested by his very first murder), but then again there is not much more in the movie to support such an assumption. I don’t know much about japanese history, but I seem to recall reading that around the years when the movie is set, the whole country experienced a lot of problems and a lot of fighting and injustice went on. Perhaps the protagonist is a criticism of that time on Japan’s history or that aspect of the Japanese mentality. Or maybe it’s all about existential angst and awareness of ones own mortality. I don’t know! Maybe the other two movies that were never made (this was planned as a trilogy) would have provided more insight.
Thanks for reading and please comment.
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