This week I got to see two very different films from director Kihachi Okamoto, Red Lion (1969) and Samurai Assassin (1965). Both were sourced from 35mm prints imported from Japan. This is my first time viewing both films, and I thought I'd share my initial impressions of them.
Red Lion (1969)
Red Lion is a pretty fascinating film. At its onset, it presents itself as a comedy, with Mifune's character Gonzo leading the charge. The film, which was partly inspired by true events, takes places during the transition period between the Tokugawa Shogunate, and the Meiji restoration. Gonzo is a simple-minded, stuttering peasant working with the new imperial government. He volunteers to let his hometown know of the regime change, and also requests to borrow the bold red lion headdress of his superior. The fun begins when we see him galloping triumphantly into town, and acting authoritatively to the current magistrates, freeing the villagers of their debts, and women from brothels. Of course, the exiting officials don't take this lying down, and a few events are set in motion.
Gonzo may come off as a buffoon, but he's just a kind-hearted guy that wants to be liked, and respected. Mifune looks to be having fun with the role, and some of his comedic mannerisms, and lines feel like they're improvised. Aside from the slapstick humor, we're also treated to wonderful festival-like scenes of villagers dancing, and celebrating the changing of the times.
The plot gets a little more tangled with twists, and double-crosses, and the humor begins to get drowned out by more serious developments. I found the middle parts of the film suffered a little due to these mixed tonalities, where it wasn't sure whether to continue playing for laughs, or make the change over to a drama film. The final act brings the story back on course however, and is the most thrilling part of the film. The action sequences aren't overly long, but we see some great sword fighting action, with exaggerated spurts of blood, including one spray of blood right into the camera.
The last 10 minutes of the film are pure chaos, as the various sub-plots converge, and come to their conclusion, some satisfyingly, others tragically. Without giving too much away, there is a symbolic dance movement by the villagers that closes out the film, which I found to be very powerful, and moving. The movie received a nice applause from my theater, and one guy in particular kept saying repeatedly "It's f***ing incredible!" and how he can't believe the film doesn't have a greater reputation than it does. I can certainly agree with him there, despite some mixed feelings about the film's uneven tones.
Samurai Assassin (1965)
Like Red Lion, Samurai Assassin is also inspired by true events, but the tone this time around is dead serious, with little to no humor. Right from the start, a lot of names, and events are thrown at you in short-order, so it really demands your complete attention. I'll be honest, the first ~40 minutes tried my patience a little. It delved into minute details about the background, and whereabouts of two characters suspected of being spies. Initially I found this play-by-play to be interesting, and gave the film a pseduo-documentary quality. But it just went on a little too long, and my interest started to wane.
There was a moment however, where everything finally clicked, and I realized that this was taking character development to another level. We first see Mifune's character, Niiro, in the present time of the film, and he's really not much to look at . He's unkempt, and a terrible drunk. In most of his films, his character's background would remain a complete mystery, but here we are provided with extensive knowledge of his upbringing, and what caused his fall from grace. So, the next time we see him in present time, it's with a fresh perspective, and it really changed how I viewed him as a character. It's probably one of the most complex characters Mifune has portrayed.
The film completely hits its stride in the latter acts, providing some surprising, and tragic turns, and a significant plot twist. While Samurai Assassin is predominantly dialogue-driven, the action in the last 30 minutes are probably what people will remember most. The final battle scene is set against heavy snow fall, and it is incredible. It's a very messy fight, and it's hard to see who's killing who at times, but the contrast of seeing all of that darkened blood against the bright snow, in a beautiful widescreen 'TohoScope' presentation, was a feast for the eyes. So yeah, despite some early reservations, the film definitely won me over in the end. The movie also features a stellar supporting cast including Takeshi Shimura, Eijirō Tōno, Akihiko Hirata, and many others.
I'm really glad I got to see these two Okamoto films close together. They really showed just how comfortable he was tackling comedic films, as well as serious ones. It's a shame more of his movies aren't available to western audiences. Today also marks the close of The Film Forum's 4-week retrospective on Mifune. I was fortunate to see four films there, three of them for the first time. I still plan to watch a couple more as part of my "at-home film festival", so I'll make one final post to wrap things up next week (that is, if you guys aren't tired of me talking about Mifune yet
).
I'd also like to personally thank DukeTogo84, and ravenus for their recommendations of Red Lion, and Samurai Assassin respectively.
Trivia: I learned Okamoto's first credited job in the film industry was as an assistant director for Snow Trail (1947), which also happens to be Mifune's first movie as well. I also learned that Samurai Assassin is actually just called Samurai in Japan. It was changed to Samurai Assassin in the US to avoid confusion with Inagaki's Samurai film(s).
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