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Clarence Tsui

4/5 stars
Kiyoshi Kurosawa launched his directorial career in the mid-1980s by turning one of the staples of Japanese cinema, the erotic “pink film”, into something steeped in style, politics and cinephilia.
Four decades on, the 70-year-old has taken another much-loved Japanese genre, the samurai drama, and stripped it of its swashbuckling conventions to deliver an atmospheric – and mostly action-free – suspense thriller that debunks myths of honour, reverence and reckless bravery in war.
An adaptation of a novel by Honobu Yonezawa, The Samurai and the Prisoner – also known as Kokurojo – is intelligent, intriguing and captivating throughout its two-and-a-half-hour runtime, with sturdy storytelling, immaculate production design and suitably spartan camerawork.
It is hardly a surprise that younger Japanese auteurs such as Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Koji Fukada and Yukiko Sode attended the film’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival to pay tribute to the director.


Set amid the feudal wars sweeping across Japan at the end of the 16th century, Kurosawa’s film unfolds mostly within Arioka Castle, where the warlord Araki Murashige (Masahiro Motoki) is defending against a year-long siege by his mentor-turned-nemesis Oda Nobunaga.
Murashige is an outlier among his peers for refusing to kill people as a power-trip ritual. When a vassal betrays him by siding with Nobunaga, Murashige refuses to execute that general’s son, despite the teenager loudly pleading for his own death to conform to the “samurai way”.
But the boy is soon found dead anyway, and the murder is followed by a series of increasingly eerie events within Murashige’s ranks. Sensing a conspiracy in the making, he seeks advice from a rival swordsman and military strategist he previously condemned to the dungeon in his castle (Masaki Suda).
Just as importantly, Murashige also consults his wife, Chiyoho (Yuriko Yoshitaka), a former member of a religious sect that advocates extremist acts of violence as a “key to paradise”.

The film highlights Murashige’s approach to navigating his complex circumstances. This is a man who uses tea rituals as interpersonal warfare and considers surrender – unthinkable among macho, warring samurai – as a political strategy.
Kurosawa reveals Murashige’s unique methods through scenes brimming with intrigue, tension, subtlety and wit.
Production designer Tetsuo Harada’s uncluttered, dark interiors – in hues that align with Kurosawa’s past horror classics such as Retribution and Creepy – heighten the fatalism and paranoia felt by the besieged characters.

Motoki’s masterful performance – which evokes a stern chieftain, a curious investigator and a comically frustrated family man – helps set the conversation-heavy film alight.
The Samurai and the Prisoner is a thinking person’s samurai saga in the best way.
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The veteran Japanese director’s new film with Masahiro Motoki as a besieged warlord is an intelligent, captivating spin on the samurai genre


The veteran Japanese director’s new film with Masahiro Motoki as a besieged warlord is an intelligent, captivating spin on the samurai genre.


Asian cinema

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Review

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The veteran Japanese director’s new film with Masahiro Motoki as a besieged warlord is an intelligent, captivating spin on the samurai genre

The veteran Japanese director’s new film with Masahiro Motoki as a besieged warlord is an intelligent, captivating spin on the samurai genre