Classic Movie Review: Samurai Rebellion (1967)

Samurai Rebellion (1967) 

Directed by: Masaki Kobayashi.

Written by: Shinobu Hashimoto based on the novel by Yasuhiko Takiguchi.

Starring: Toshirô Mifune (Isaburo Sasahara), Yôko Tsukasa (Ichi Sasahara), Gô Katô (Yogoro Sasahara), Tatsuyoshi Ehara (Bunzo Sasahara), Etsuko Ichihara (Kiku), Isao Yamagata (Shobei Tsuchiya), Tatsuya Nakadai (Tatewaki Asano), Shigeru Kôyama (Geki Takahashi), Michiko Ôtsuka (Suga Sasahara), Tatsuo Matsumura (Lord Masakata Matsudaira), Masao Mishima (Sanzaemon Yanase), Jun Hamamura (Hyoemon Shiomi), Emi Yamada (Shiomi's wife), Takamaru Sasaki (Kenmotsu Sasahara), Hideo Fukuhara (Sahei), Noriko Kawajiri (Nui), Tetsuko Kobayashi  (Otama), Hisano Yamaoka (Sannojo Kasai's mother), Tomoko Hito (Yoshino), Yoshirô Aoki (Takazo Komiya). 

 

Masaki Kobayashi’s Samurai Rebellion is similar to his 1962 masterpiece Harakiri – which is one of the best samurai films (hell, one of the best Japanese films) in history. Both are historical dramas about samurai – which spend most of its time talking, then ending with an explosion of violence at the end. Harakiri was an intricately structured film – with flashbacks upon flashbacks, which slowly builds to its intense climax. Samurai Rebellion is somewhat different – it’s basically a domestic drama for about 90 minutes, before it again explodes into violence. It isn’t quite as good as Harakiri – but it’s still an effective film, in part because of the lead performance by Kurosawa favorite Toshirô Mifune (who at this point, had made his last of 16 films with Kurosawa), and in part because Kobayashi knows how to tell this story. He didn’t really want the word Samurai in the title – he wanted it to simply be called Rebellion – because it’s not just a samurai film after all.

 

Like Harakiri, Samurai Rebellion focuses on an older samurai. This is Isaburo Sasahara (Mifune), the leader of his family, who is approaching the age of retirement. All he really needs to do is find a wife for his son – something he takes very seriously, as his own marriage, while lengthy, hasn’t exactly been happy. This is thrown into a little chaos when the lord decrees that Isaburo’s son, Yogoro (Go Kato) marry Lady Ichi (Yoko Sasahara) – a young woman who became the Lord’s mistress (not out of choice), even gave birth to his son, but eventually grew angry in her position – and struck the lord. Because of her position as a woman who birthed a son to the Lord, she cannot be completely discarded – so, she is pawned off on Yogoro. The family isn’t happy about this – but refusing the request from the lord would bring more shame than excepting it. Years pass, and Isaburo is happy in “retirement” – with Yogoro now the head of the household. He and Ichi have genuinely fallen in love – they have a child together, and are happy. Then, of course, the lord comes back. He wants Ichi back – as the son she bore him has now become next in line for the lord’s position – it doesn’t look good to have that child’s mother married off to someone else.

 

This is the plot for most of its runtime – it is all about these various maneuverings, and the domestic life of Isaburo and his family. Isaburo has been married for years – but he and his wife don’t really love each other. He is, of course, the head of the family – but she really runs things, make the decisions, and he basically goes along. When the lord, or more accurately the lord’s steward (we, of course, don’t see the lord until near the end) comes to try and pawn off his mistress, Isaburo at first wants to stand up then – and only backs down when his son makes it clear he accepts the match. He was prepared, then, to finally stand up to his wife. Years later, again the wife wants to capitulate to the lord’s whims – but this time, Isaburo will not be dissuaded from rebelling against the wishes.

 

There is a giant battle at the climax of the films. Dozens of people are chopped down at the end of Isaburo’s sword. It is probably what we expect all along – after all, we have seen Mifune as a samurai many times before, and know what he is capable of. This is one of his best performances because for so much of the movie, he isn’t the Mifune we know from those other films. He seems more mild mannered, meek and mild – willing to let his wife run things, and just go along for the ride. For his own life that is good enough. It’s only when his son – and his beloved daughter-in-law – face something similar that he finally manages to stand up. He slowly becomes the Toshiro Mifune we know from Yojimbo and other Kurosawa films.

 

The rebellion in Samurai Rebellion is one against conformity and complacency in Japanese society. Everyone in the film is unusually polite – as long as you do what is asked of you. If you don’t, that it where the problems start. Samurai Rebellion is about Isaburo deciding to fight back against the system that forces them to all be the same. It isn’t the masterpiece that Harakiri is – but it’s still a great Samurai film just the same.

The Best Films I Have Never Seen Before: Hara Kiki (1962)

Harakiri (1962) ****
Directed by: Masaki Kobayashi.
Written by: Shinobu Hashimoto based on the novel by Yasuhiko Takiguchi.
Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai (Hanshiro Tsugumo), Akira Ishihama (Motome Chijiiwa), Shima Iwashita (Miho Tsugumo), Tetsurô Tanba (Hikokuro Omodaka), Masao Mishima (Tango Inaba), Ichirô Nakatani (Hayato Yazaki), Kei Satô (Masakazu), Yoshio Inaba (Jinai Chijiiwa), Yoshirô Aoki (Umenosuke Kawabe).

Masaki Kobayashi’s Harakiri is one of the best samurai films I have ever seen. This is true despite the fact that the film really is an anti-samurai film – one that looks at Japan’s most celebrated historic warrior, and criticizes the famous code in which they lived. Kobayashi’s film, while certainly critical of feudalism in Japan’s past, works as well as a criticism of Japan’s present circa 1962. Kobayashi rejects the idea that the individual most be subserverant to the group – a prevailing idea in Japan at that time (and in some ways still today). So it shouldn’t be surprising that Harakiri, although it is a samurai film, doesn’t contain all that much action. True, the final battle in the film is the samurai version of The Wild Bunch’s final shootout – bloody in the extreme and sustained for a long time – but until then, Harakiri almost seems like a courtroom drama, more than a samurai film. When we finally get to that bloody showdown at the end of the film, it isn’t really thrilling, because it’s all too sad. The violence hits hard, as it should.

Interestingly, for a samurai film, this one is set in 1630 – less than 25 years into the reign of the Tokugawa shogunate. Most samurai films take place much later – in the 1800s – in the years before the shogunate collapsed. The purpose setting the film earlier is to show that the code of the samurai was wrong from the beginning – they didn’t lose their way at the end, but were always corrupt. The film opens with Hanshiro Tsugumo (Tatsuya Nakadai) showing up at the compound of the Iyi clan, requesting permission to commit seppuku – ritual suicide for samurais. Through flashbacks, we learn that Tsugumo’s son in law, Motome Chijiwa (Akira Ishihama) had recently come to the Iyi clan with the same request. Motome had heard that if you offer to commit seppuku to the Iyi’s, that instead of allowing you, that they would offer you a job instead. But the Iyi clan, sick of having so many ronin (masterless samurai), from clans that were destroyed at the beginning of the shogunate era, showing up and requesting the honor. Instead of giving Motome a job, they call his bluff, and force him to go through with the seppuku. He requests a few days to put his affairs in order, and they refuse. When they discover that Motome has sold his real samurai swords, they force him to go through with the seppuku using his bamboo swords – which makes the process much harder and more painful. As Tsugumo tells his story – of how he came to be unemployed, his struggles to raise his daughter, and Motomo, whose father was his best friend before out of shame he as well committed seppuku, the death of his wife, the death of his grandchild, the death of his daughter, the Iyi clan grows restless. They sense that there is something Tsugomo is not telling him – specifically about the absence of the three samurai he requested to be his “second” (the one who will cut his head off after he has disemboweled himself so the pain isn’t too great, and his death isn’t dragged out too long).

Harakiri is a masterfully made movie. Kobayashi shoots the film is stark black and white, and in widescreen, which serves the movie well. The intricate flashback structure of the movie is expertly handled, and Kobayashi’s visuals are frequently stunning (as they would be in the color film Kwaidan two years later). The film ends with one of the greatest samurai battles ever put on screen. The battle is bloody and intense, but also full of starts and stops. Interestingly, throughout the battle, Kobayashi cuts away to show the head of the Iyi clan, in isolation in a dark room, as the crushing weight of what Tsugumo has told him becomes all too clear.

Harakiri has a slower pace than most samurai movies – no real action happens for well over an hour and a half – but the film is never boring. Part of this is thanks to the brilliant performance by Tatsuya Nakadai, in the lead role. He has a difficult role, because he cannot reveal everything from the start, but by the end, when the full weight of what has happened becomes apparent, just how good he was becomes apparent. He rejects the code of the samurai, but shows the hypocrisy in the Iyi clan, who claim to hold it above all other considerations. Tsugumo believes there are things in this life worth dying for – and he shames the Iyi clan by proving that he is willing to do it.

Kobayashi isn’t as well known as some other Japanese directors of that era – particularly Akira Kurosawa. But Harakiri can easily stand alongside the best films that other Japanese master ever made. It is a complex, challenging film. One that is endlessly engrossing. I want to see more of his films.