Samurai cinema

Daisuke Itō and Masahiro Makino were central to the development of samurai films in the silent and prewar eras.

Akira Kurosawa is the best known to western audiences, and similarly has directed the samurai films best known in the West. He directed Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Throne of Blood, Yojimbo and many others. He had a long association with Toshirō Mifune, arguably Japan's most famous actor. Mifune himself had a production company that produced samurai epics, often with him starring. Two of Kurosawa's samurai movies were based on the works of William Shakespeare, Throne of Blood (Macbeth) and Ran (King Lear). A number of his films were remade in Italy and the United States as westerns, or as action films set in other contexts.[5] His film Seven Samurai is one of the most important touchstones of the genre and the most well known outside Japan. It also illustrates some of the conventions of samurai film in that the main characters are ronin, masterless unemployed samurai, free to act as their conscience dictates. Importantly, these men tend to deal with their problems with their swords and are very skilled at doing so. It also shows the helplessness of the peasantry and the distinction between the two classes.

Masaki Kobayashi directed the films Harakiri and Samurai Rebellion, both cynical films based on flawed loyalty to the clan.

Kihachi Okamoto films focus on violence in a particular fashion. In particular in his films Samurai Assassin, Kill! and Sword of Doom. The latter is particularly violent, the main character engaging in combat for a lengthy 7 minutes of film at the end of the movie. His characters are often estranged from their environments, and their violence is a flawed reaction to this.[5]

Hideo Gosha, and many of his films helped create the archetype of the samurai outlaw. Gosha's films are as important as Kurosawa's in terms of their influence, visual style and content, yet are not as well known in the West. Gosha's films often portrayed the struggle between traditional and modernist thought and were decidedly anti-feudal. He largely stopped making chambara, switching to the Yakuza genre, in the 1970s. Some of his most noted movies are Goyokin, Hitokiri, Sanbiki no Samurai and Kedamono no Ken ("Sword of the Beast").

Kenji Misumi was active making samurai films from the 1950s to the mid 1970s. He directed roughly 30 films in the genre, including some the Lone Wolf and Cub films, and a number in the Zatoichi and Sleepy Eyes of Death series.

An excellent example of the kind of immediacy and action evident in the best genre is seen Gosha's first film, the Three Outlaw Samurai, based on a television series. Three farmers kidnap the daughter of the local magistrate in order to call attention to the starvation of local peasants, a ronin appears and decides to help them. In the process, two other ronin with shifting allegiances join the drama, the conflict widens, eventually leading to betrayal, assassination and battles between armies of mercenary ronin.[6]

Recently, another director, Keishi Ōtomo has directed a live action adaption of Nobuhiro Watsuki's manga series Rurouni Kenshin, which tells the story of a former Ishin Shishi named Himura Kenshin (formerly known as "Hitokiri Battōsai" (人斬り抜刀斎?) who, after the end of the Bakumatsu, becomes a wanderer of the countryside of Japan offering protection and aid to those in need, as atonement for the murders he once committed as an assassin. The film was a huge success. Rurouni Kenshin was theatrically released on August 25, 2012 in Japan, grossing over $36 million in that country and over $60 million worldwide as of November 2012. It was released in DVD on December 26, 2012. The film has been licensed for distribution in over 60 countries in Europe, Latin America and Asia. The movie premiered in North America as an opening selection for the 2012 LA EigaFest in December 14, 2012. Two sequels titled Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Taika-hen and Rurouni Kenshin: Densetsu no Saigo-hen were released in 2014.

A samurai film must include samurai warriors, sword fighting, and historical setting. Samurai warriors, in film, are differentiated from other warriors by the code of honor followed to honor the samurai's leader. A samurai must be skilled in warfare and martial arts and ready to defend his honor even to his death. If not able to defend his honor, a samurai may choose to commit self-disembowelment, seppuku, in order to save reputation or "face". Instead, a samurai may exact vengeance in a case of the loss of someone the samurai cared about, such as occurs in the film Harakiri. In Harakiri, Hanshiro Tsugumo takes revenge on the house of Kageyu Saito for the loss of his adopted son-in-law, who was forced to commit suicide by the house of Kageyu Saito. The house of Kageyu Saito refused to give the son-in-law money. Because he had asked to commit suicide he was forced to perform self-disembowelment, with a remarkable twist not revealed in this discussion. Hanshiro knows an example was unrightfully made of his son-in-law in order to discourage the asking by impoverished samurai for donations from the house of Kageyu. In film, motivation may vary but the samurai's behavior is to maintain honor even in death and is perpetuated by the code of bushido.

Also, looking at the historical setting of the film the audience can take cultural context[9] of the samurai in that certain period. For instance the Sengoku period (1478–1603) saw Japan torn by civil war as daimyō warlords fought for control of land. In the Tokugawa period (1603–1868), peace from civil war meant there were no wars for the samurai to fight and some samurai became ronin, masterless warriors left to struggle to survive. In the Meiji period (1868–1912), we see a decline of the hereditary existence of the samurai and the rise of westernization. In this period the ideal of the samurai and the code of bushido are popularized into the military warrior's belief. The time frame meant changes in the sorts of conflicts for the samurai to fight and film would capture their resistance against overwhelming odds.

A recurring conflict the ideal samurai encounters is the ninjō and giri conflict.[10] Ninjō is the human feeling that tells you what is right and giri is the obligation of the samurai to his lord and clan. The conflict originated from overwhelming control of the Tokugawa bakufu government over the samurai's behavior. Often samurai would question the morality of their actions and are torn between duty and conscience. This conflict transcends eras in samurai films and can create the perception of the protagonist as being the moral underdog or steadfast warrior. In The Last Samurai, Katsumoto is no longer of use to his emperor and sentenced to self-disembowelment. He goes against his duty to follow through with his sentence and flees to fight his final rebellion against the central government's army. Ninjo and giri conflict is dynamic to the character of the samurai.

The samurai warrior is often synonymous with his or her own sword. Although swordsmanship is an important aspect of warfare, idealizing the samurai and the sword as having a bond is an invented ideal, although it is popularized in many dramas. The Tokugawa period saw a change in the type of warfare, as combat shifted from the bow and arrow to close range combat with handheld weapons, and competitive sword competition.

There are a number of themes that occur in samurai film plots. Many feature roaming masterless samurai, seeking work or a place in society. Others are period historical tales of true characters. Others show tales of clan loyalty.[5]

• Sonny Chiba
• Chiyonosuke Azuma
• Ryunosuke Tsukigata
• Raizo Ichikawa
• Shintaro Katsu
• Tomisaburō Wakayama
• Hiroki Matsukata
• Toshirō Mifune
• Tatsuya Nakadai
• Kinnosuke Nakamura
• Denjiro Okochi
• Ryutaro Otomo
• Hiroyuki Sanada
• Tetsuro Tamba
• Tomisaburo Wakayama
• Ken Watanabe
• Masakazu Tamura
• Tsumasaburo Bando
• Utaemon Ichikawa

• Kinji Fukasaku
• Hideo Gosha
• Daisuke Ito
• Kon Ichikawa
• Hiroshi Inagaki
• Masaki Kobayashi
• Akira Kurosawa
• Kenji Misumi
• Kihachi Okamoto
• Kaneto Shindo
• Masahiro Shinoda
• Takeshi Kitano
• Yoji Yamada
• Sadao Yamanaka
• Tokuzō Tanaka
• Kazuo Ikehiro
• Kimiyoshi Yasuda
• Kazuo Mori
• Sadao Nakajima

• Silver, Alain (1977). The Samurai Film. New York: Overlook Press. ISBN 0-87951-175-3.
• White, Allen (22 December 2015). "A Man, a Blade, an Empty Road". UncleanArts. Retrieved 2016-01-11.
• Galloway, Patrick (2005). Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves: The Samurai Film Handbook. Berkeley: Stone Bridge P.
• Galloway, Patrick (2009). Warring Clans, Flashing Blades: A Samurai Film Companion. Berkeley: Stone Bridge P.
• Hobshawn, Eric (1992). The Invention of Tradition. New York: Cambridge UP.

• Jidaigeki Renaissance Project
• Toei Kyoto Studio Park
• Gerow, Aaron, ed. (2012). "The Sword and The Screen: The Japanese Period Film 1915-1960". Film Series Commentaries. Yale University Council on East Asian Studies. Program for a jidaigeki film series sponsored by the Yale CEAS and the National Film Archive of Japan.