• 雄呂血 (Orochi)

10/31/24 (Thurs)

This silent film of 1925 apparently broke barriers by presenting an antihero fighting the corruption of the ruling class as opposed to the good samurai defending the masses. The video online has excellent Japanese narration by a professional benshi narrator, which I listened to briefly. But benshi tend to add their own commentary and imagined dialogue; silent films were not made with the assumption of any specific narration and, with the intertitles, are (or should be) perfectly understandable as is. I ended up turning the sound off, which worked just fine. The movie does rely too much on expository intertitles, some of which are very long and hard to read (at least on a television). Thank goodness for the English subtitles.

The title Orochi is not the serpent of Kabuki fame. Though it’s the same word in English, the characters here are a strange mix of unrelated kanji, apparently chosen at random (for instance, the middle character ro is simply part of the screenwriter’s name) when the authorities objected to the original Buraikan or ruffian (often mistranslated in the West as outlaw). The odd word presumably perplexed them enough to let it pass. The film was the first to be produced by the production company set up by its star, former Kabuki actor Bando Tsumasaburo, though it was the second one released. The actor, known popularly as Bantsuma, must have liked it: it’s the only of the 200+ films in which he appeared that he kept the original negatives. And what a film.

Heizaburo is a hot-tempered samurai from a low social class who just can’t get a break. His actions are constantly misunderstood or (sometimes intentionally) misinterpreted, sending him into a downward spiral. He gets blamed when he acts against provocations from a socially superior samurai (witnesses fail to defend him), when he attacks men for insulting his master and master’s daughter, when he tries to explain the situation to the daughter, when he has garbage thrown on him from the upper floor of a restaurant, when he tries to mediate a fight, and on and on. He is banished from the clan and falls into poverty. He is taken in by a wealthy benefactor, only to discover that the man is not all he appeared to be. When the man tries to rape no other than Heizaburo’s first love, the latter goes berserk in an astonishing final fight scene where he takes on dozens of attackers, not in the stagey Kabuki style prevalent to that time but in feral, muscular and realistic fashion, much of it staged in long single takes. He only gives up when he inadvertently kills a man for the first time, which seems to suck all the air out of him.

The film is a dig against a social system where even samurai are segmented into high and low ranks. It opens with explicit criticism: “Not all those who wear the name of villain, are truly evil men. Not all those who are respected as noble men, are worthy of the name.” That said, Orochi’s quickness to anger and his dim-wittedness leave him unable to play the game, contributing to his downfall. He had the eye of the master’s daughter, but after the fight with the initial samurai, she simply assumes he was wrong due to his lesser social status, i.e., this is how low-lifes like him behave, so he must be at fault. Unable to accept the strictures that would allow him to survive, he is ultimately beaten down.

The film was made in the same year that Japan introduced compulsory military training for students, and the military was becoming an increasingly powerful presence. The social commentary in the film was not welcomed by the authorities, who reportedly ordered nearly 20% of the film to be cut, certain scenes reshot, and the title changed. Still, the result would not have been out of place in the wave of anti-samurai films of the rebellious 1960s.

Tsumasaburo is a magnetic presence. His athletic fight scenes evidently provided the pattern for all subsequent chambara films, though I’ve never seen anything as exhilarating as the wild last scene. The acting otherwise is variable, but it doesn’t matter as long as he is on the scene. The characters sport Kabuki makeup in some cases, suggesting that the filmmakers still had one foot in the past. Overall, though, the film is a tense psychological study of a character who finally bursts – and how – under social pressures. I didn’t expect a film at this level. Banzai.