jac 02/11/15

Released: Part 1: 1941; Part 2: 1942

Length: Part 1: 104 minutes; Part 2: 105 minutes

Producer: Koa Eiga KK/ Shochiku

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi

Story: Seika Mayama

Screenplay: Kenichiro Hara, Yoshikata Yoda

Fine Art Director: Hiroshi Mizutani

Cinematographer: Kohei Sugiyama

Music: Shiro Fukai

Cast:

Utaemon Ichikawa, Isamu Kosugi, Mieko Takamine, & members of the Zenshinza theater troupe.

Story:

The film is based on a stage play by Seika Mayama, in turn based on a historical account familiar to every Japanese. (Indeed, it has been variously estimated that more than eighty adaptations of this story were made just on film between 1907 and 1962, to say nothing of plays.) The story begins at the shogun's palace, when Lord Asano attempts to kill Lord Kira, who has just insulted him. He merely wounds Kira, however, and is ordered to commit seppuku. The remainder of the film revolves around a vendetta by his retainers who, following their master's death, have become master-less samurai, or ronin. The leader of the dead Asano's samurai must bide his time until the right moment, then avenge his master. That vengance itself, however, is (like Asano's attack on Kira) a violation of law, and is followed by the mass suicide of all 47 of the ronin.

Commentary:

The film is significant in two ways. First, it is indicative of efforts by the Japanese government on the eve of World War II to produce propaganda works glorifying traditional values of loyalty, vengance, and self-sacrifice. Indeed, the film was so closely tied to such efforts that it was not shown in the United States until 1970. Many have criticized Mizoguchi for making the film, since it seems so contradictory to political tendencies he expressed both before and after the war. (One wonders, however, what choices such critics would make if confronted with the same choices…)

But the film is also significant because of Mizoguchi's skill in making so well a story which had been told so many times before. Since he could assume that his audience knew the story by heart, Mizoguchi had little need to develop the plot. He could, instead, concentrate on the story's implications for its characters and on the visuals. (The assigned article by D. William Davis explores some of the visual aspects of the film. Please refer to it for more explanation.) Violent action occupies only a miniscule fraction of the film's nearly four-hour length, in contrast to most other adaptations of the story. The bulk of the film is concerned with exploring the web of conflicting obligations in which the ronin find themselves, and the cinematography is designed to support this exploration.