• 虎の尾を踏む男達  (The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail)

1/7/21 (Thurs)

I had a bit of time at the end of the day and picked this 1945 film because it was an early Kurosawa piece (just his fourth film), started at war end under Japanese censorship and completed just after the war under US censorship; it was based on the popular and eminently film-worthy Kabuki classic Kanjincho (itself based on the Noh classic Ataka); and, not least, it was short at just one hour.

Seven fugitives, including the great General Yoshitsune and his main defender Benkei, are escaping through the mountains disguised as mountain priests in an attempt to sneak past check points set up along the way and reach friendlier territory up north. Their task is complicated by Yoshitsune’s notoriety, so he is dressed as the group’s lowly porter in order to make him as inconspicuous as possible. At the Ataka check point, they encounter a particularly suspicious guard who, trying to ascertain whether they are truly priests, interrogates them about Buddhist doctrine. Benkei, who is in fact a former priest, manages to fend off the guard’s pointed questions. When the guard notes the porter’s resemblance to Yoshitsune, the quick-thinking Benkei berates the “porter” and beats him — an unimaginable act if this were really a servant behaving towards his master. This convinces the guard that the group is legitimate and allows them through. (The Kabuki, though not the film, also leaves open the possibility that the guard is aware of their identity but so impressed by Benkei’s adroit action that he lets them get away.)

The rendering of that simple story proves rather tedious despite the brief running time. With one key exception, it follows the Kabuki play way too closely for its own good. The gatekeeper’s peace offering of sake after his investigation of the group, for example, is fine in the stylized world of Kabuki, where it’s basically there to give Benkei a drunken dance scene. In the film’s more realistic setting, though, it makes no sense at all, especially with the less confrontational stance taken by the film’s notably young gatekeeper. Kurosawa did open up the action by showing the disguised priests as they wended their way through the mountains and toward the gate (where the play opens), but the bleakness was overdone. Benkei in particular, a dynamic figure in both legend and the play, seemed overly thoughtful here, which saps the life out of the drama.

The one big divergence from the Kabuki was the addition of a comic porter, which seems to have been written specifically for famed comedian Enomoto Kenichi, known popularly as Enoken. The constant babbling and mugging of the diminutive Enoken was probably intended as a contrast to the gloom elsewhere, but it became wearing after a while. The film veers between too serious and too slapstick, never finding a proper balance. (Japanese censors reportedly objected to the use of the comedian, feeling it was inconsistent with the gravity of a story involving one of Japan’s great heroes.) It had an interesting ending, where Enoken wakens in the mountains to find that everyone else has gone – so was this just a dream? Not clear, but it does allow him to recreate the stage Benkei’s spectacular leaping tobiroppo exit.

Kurosawa directed some of the greatest stage-to-film adaptations ever, mainly involving Shakespeare. But this is not one of them. Missable.