By Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s THE SAMURAI AND THE PRISONER has a title akin to a network procedural, and perhaps that is not an accident. This is one of the most episodic features in recent memory, chronicling a series of uneasy incidents across a brutal war that come to define the morality and strategic prowess of its protagonist. Its 147-minute runtime is both grueling and a bit too short; while Kurosawa was likely deadset on making his first foray into this historic Japanese subgenre a feature, perhaps he should’ve considered television. The film’s structure and small scale cries out for it, and while his typically adept direction makes it a pleasurable watch, it also feels less distinct than his contemporary paranoid thrillers.
We find ourselves in the Azuchi Era following Araki Murashige (Masahiro Motoki), a samurai who rebels against the tyrannical Oda Nobunaga (Bando Shingo), whom he once acted as a mercenary for. He and his troops wall themselves inside the Arioka Castle, impenetrable to Oda’s army. They imprison Kuroda (Masaki Suda), one of Oda’s emissaries, but Araki refuses to kill him despite the pleas of his men. Araki has grown a conscience and pursues the path with the least possible bloodshed, despite a mission that will require much of it. He starts to find Kuroda quite useful when an also-imprisoned child is killed by a mysterious “ghost arrow.” From here, we’re treated to a series of mysteries that unfold over 10 months, divided by seasonal chapters.
While the visuals are gorgeous and transportive, THE SAMURAI AND THE PRISONER does not have the massive scope that one would expect from the Akira Kurosawa classics that define the genre. This is a very intimate film that takes place almost entirely within Arioka’s walls, only occasionally stepping outside for brief battle sequences. Perhaps mirroring his protagonist, Kiyoshi is not particularly interested in the violence of it all. Most of the murders happen offscreen, and the brief sword fights we do see are staged with the somewhat awkward gore-disguising choreography one would find in a black-and-white film. It’s a fascinating choice for a film so obsessed with the draining effect of war. It obscures any pleasure we might take in the action, but it mildly backfires by making everything feel a bit weightless and stage-y.
Masahiro Motoki is terrific as Araki. Although he is endeavoring to be a better man, we see that he cannot help but return to his forceful nature. He doesn’t trust the respect of his men, which is fair enough, considering that they all seem to be scheming in the background. Strangely, he finds that he can place the most trust in Kuroda, who may verbally spar with him, but also gives him unendingly helpful advice. Masaki Suda beautifully portrays Kuroda’s inner conflict. He worries that aiding Araki will lead to the death of his family, but he ultimately realizes that the wider mission at hand is far more important. The rest of the cast gets a bit lost in the shuffle, especially Araki’s wife Chiyoho (Yuriko Yoshitaka), who mostly acts as a soundboard for his inner turmoil until one third-act scene where her interiority comes to light. I also wish we had gotten a bit more time with Oda, who is portrayed in a similarly minimal fashion to those who forced LONE WOLF AND CUB’s Ogami Ittō to act as their executioner. Had this been a series, a flashback episode where we could’ve fully delved into Araki’s past would’ve done wonders for this tale.
After an immense amount of simmering, the third act falters. The ultimate reveal of who has been the puppet master all along is some real soap opera nonsense that crushes the dramatic weight of everything that has come before. Once that has been aired out, Kurosawa sputters the film to a stop since he has no intention of delivering a climactic battle. There’s no real closure to this story; it just decides to end and then shows us a lazy title card dictating the fate of these characters. This would’ve been forgivable in a more compact film that briefly evoked the emotional turmoil of this conflict, but at such an epic length, it is deeply disappointing.
The sensibility that has served Kurosawa so well in other outings yields wildly mixed results in THE SAMURAI AND THE PRISONER. At its best, this is a moving portrait of a man who cannot reconcile with the fact that his moral heel turn still comes with a very human cost. At its worst, it feels like a chopped-up TV series jerry-rigged into an unwieldy feature that never quite finds the impactful moment it is searching for. In the scope of such a massive filmography, it is strange that Kurosawa’s stab at such a cornerstone of Japanese cinema will likely be a footnote best remembered by those who attended Cannes and Fantasia Fest.
Comments