- 荒木又右衛門 決闘鍵屋の辻 (Vendetta for a Samurai)
6/10/23 (Sat)
Mori Kazuo’s 1952 film is based on the Igagoe vendetta, one of Japan’s three great vendettas alongside the Soga brothers (referenced in the film) and the 47 Ronin. The story has been memorialized on many occasions, most notably in one of the great plays of Bunraku and Kabuki theater (which lasts a miniseries-sized 7-8 hours if done in full) as well as dozens of films and television dramas. Mori, however, digs behind the legend to tell his distinctive version. Much credit goes to the script by no less than Kurosawa Akira, who must have had his hands full in the director’s chair after the global fame of the previous year’s Rashomon and that year’s Ikiru. The Japanese title is literally Showdown at Kagiya Crossing, which I actually prefer. (That would also avoid confusion with Mori’s later Samurai Vendetta, which has the much more evocative Japanese title Hakuoki (Chronicle of the Pale Pink Cherry Blossoms). English titlists need a better imagination.)
An overwrought opening chambara scene of intrepid derring-do turns out to be an amusing spoof of a legend in which Mataemon is said to have killed 36 men alongside his brave troupe. The narration reveals that the truth was quite different, and the film thereafter examines the real story as drawn from the historical records, at least as interpreted by Mori and Kurosawa. Heroes and villains are not as clear cut as their Kabuki counterparts, and the showdown is nowhere near the photogenic epic that we are expecting.
sekenbanashi 