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Rating: 4 out of 5 Release Date: 2000 Director: Kon Ichikawa Netflix Link IMDb Link |
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Something in the opening credits caught my eye: screenplay by Akira Kurosawa, Keisuke Kinoshita, Kon Ichikawa and Masaki Kobayashi. Four of Japan’s greatest and most prolific directors collaborated on a single screenplay and the story does not disappoint.
It is an elaborate tale of corruption and double-crosses, with a little bit of fighting and a whole lot of intrigue. Dora-Heita, expertly played by Koji Yakusho, is pitted between corrupt officials and corrupt yakuza bosses, all of whom would like nothing better than for him to go away by any means necessary. The character of Dora-Heita actually reminds me a little bit of Kurosawa’s character, Yojimbo, in the sense that he is blustery and gruff, places little value on authority, and will get the job done how he wants to, not how they tell him to. The samurai in this film are not the typical variety you see in jidaigeki who go about fighting in wars or slashing up bad guys, but rather, they are officials. Dora-Heita is a magistrate, akin to a police officer and a judge rolled into one, brought in to clean up a certain troublesome neighborhood.
That being said, in typical Ichikawa fashion, the film does drag a bit in spots and it’s not altogether as tight as it could have been. Still, this is a pretty entertaining story, made even more so by Koji Yakusho’s performance. Recommended to fans of the samurai genre.
