The 47 Ronin

Nearly four hours long, this film can task even the most dedicated samurai viewer. It has some really good acting, but that is lost for most in the pace.

It is a tale of the famous Ako Vendetta of 1702. I do not know how historically accurate it is, but it does give a glimpse into Japan's history.

It also gives a glimpse of hara-kiri; the ritual suicide by slicing the stomach until the bowels spill out, then decapitation by a skilled swordsman.

You are better served in seeing director Kenji Mizoguchi in the classic Sansho the Bailiff.

One needs to see a fair amount of Japanese film to realize that so much of it is cerebral. The talkiness of this film, and most of the Kurosawa films, is to be savored. What this one misses is a modicum of action. I am as patient as anyone, but after three-and-a-half hours of discussion, as a Westerner, I expect something visual. While the close-ups and the tight scene making are fine, we are made to wait so long for an event that we know is coming from the outset. It will be interesting to see what the new film with Keanu Reeves, set to come out in December of 2013, does with the same event. This film is about honor and an ancient code. It is the sunset of the Samurai and they are dealing with the only way to do what they must do and suffer the consequence. Apparently this was a commissioned work, produced during World War II. It is spars and simple. There are some shots outside, and these become so welcome, but we are quickly brought back into the discussion to the interior. Most critical events take place off-screen. I'm sure to a Japanese viewer, the breadth of the ultimate sacrifice is part of legend and they are a willing part of the experience.

Though stately, impressive, and vaguely powerful at times, it nonetheless demands more patience than this viewer had. It's well filmed, but rather static and aloof. None of this is aided by its nearly 4 hour length.

"Genroku Chûshingura" (The 47 Ronin, 1941) is a massive undertaking. Both from the filmmakers and the audience. The film is perhaps the most ambitious adaptation of the oft-filmed kabuki play that it is based on. Shochiku produced the film as a two-parter, with the total film clocking in at almost four hours. It was wartime and studio heads considered it a matter of great importance that this classic tale of feudal loyalty would be brought to screen, for people's fighting spirit to grow higher.

The film starts in 1701. Lord Asano attacks Lord Kira, but doesn't manage to kill him, and he is then forced to commit harakiri by the shogunate. News of this reach Asano's men, loyal to him until the very end, who start planning their revenge.

The motivations for the actions are slowly revealed in the dialogue, although it isn't a mystery narrative like Kobayashi's later "Harakiri" (1962). Although this is an ambitious film, I have several problems with it. Like in most pre-war or war-time period films, the characters aren't psychologically fleshed out, even if there is attempt to accomplish this. The propaganda is such a major element within these characters, that they cease to feel realistic. The film is very serious, as Mizoguchi is known to be, but this time he isn't passionate. The director preferred to do films about fallen women, and this narrative does not really give him much to do. His famous mise-en-scène is also not at all memorable in this film, as the film mostly takes place in the same, lifeless sets.

Unlike later versions, this film really avoids action and violence, although these are part of the narrative. Mizoguchi was never keen on doing action scenes. I can complement this film for the detailed look it gives of the period, but I did not find it interesting as a narrative. The four-hour length felt crushing because there was not an emotional attachment to the characters.

So all in all, as a piece of wartime propaganda, society's attempt to control the contemporary life by subjecting people to a vision of history, that supports the current regime and politics, this is an interesting piece of 20th century history. As a Mizoguchi film, it is lackluster, and feels like something he was forced to make.

Mizoguchi's Genroku CHUSHINGURA: originally written for the Japanese Hokubei Mainichi, San Francisco, November 5, 1976

Chushingura, the story of the 47 Loyal Ronin of Ako, the unofficial national epic of Japan, has been filmed probably more times than any other subject in Japanese film history. Starting in the silent days (first version a filmed Kabuki performance in 1913) there have been well over a dozen editions of this perennial favorite over the years, including a feature length cartoon about 47 dogs entitled "Wan-Wan Chushingura". ( N.B. wan-wan ="bow wow" in Japanese.)

Of these various film treatments the only one which can be said to be fairly well known in this country is the relatively popular 1963 Toho all-star edition by Hiroshima Inagaki. In the Bay Area the Inagaki Chushingura has been so over promoted (since It happens to be owned by a Berkeley distributor) that most people around here are not even aware that other versions of the film exist. Another, and in the opinion of this writer, far more interesting treatment of the Chushingura story, directed by Kenji MIzoguchi in 1942, just after Pearl Harbor, is now on view for a weeks run at the Telegraph Repertory Cinema in Berkeley near the campus.

This film, a landmark of the forties and a landmark of the MIzoguchi repertoire as well, did receive limited exposure earlier this year before small museum audiences at the Pacific Film Archive during the course of a MIzoguchi retrospective held there in April. The current run at the Tel-Rep is, however, to the best of my knowledge, the first real commercial exposure this remarkable film has ever had in this country.

It is well known that fidelity is one of the cardinal Japanese virtues, and adherence to an established code of behavior another. As the ultimate dramatic exemplification of these fundamental Japanese values the Chushingura story is unrivaled.

In the spring of the year 1702 at the height of the Genroku period the idealistic young Lord Asano of Ako castle (present day Hyogo Prefecture near Kobe) refusing to pay a bribe in return for instruction in courtly protocol, is baited into drawing his sword against the sleazy corrupt Master of Ceremonies, Lord Kira at the Shogun's palace. For this unpardonable breach of the courtly code he is forced to commit Harakiri, the Asano clan is disbanded, and all his retainers are reduced to outcast Ronin -- wandering masterless Samurai -- the lowest of the low in the strict Samurai social order.

Responsibility for restoring the honor of the Aano clan now falls upon the shoulders of the chamberlain and chief retainer, Oishi Kuranosuke. The only way to achieve this is by a blood vendetta against Kira, but Kira is, of course, expecting this and goes into hiding.

in order to lull Kira into a false sense of security Oishi In turn himself goes underground abandoning his family and pretending to lead a dissolute life devoted to pleasure. So determined is Oishi in maintaining this pretense to ensure the ultimate success of his mission that even the widow of Lord Asano is convinced that he has lost his nerve and she refuses to permit him to offer incense on the anniversary of Asano's death.

on Christmas Day, 1703, after enduring more than a year if public shame and private deprivation, finally surfaces and leads the 47 Samurai who have remained loyal throughout (although many have not and have dropped out) in the famous attack in the snow on the Kira estate. Kira's head is taken as vowed and the loyal 47 march solemnly to Asano's grave to pay their last respects.

The inescapable penalty for this act of defiance against the Shogunate was, of course, Seppuku for all involved --the ultimate example of Death before Dishonor and and all forty- seven Ronin accepted their fate of mass suicide by disembowelment -- the excising of ones own intestines without benefit of anesthetic -- with great dignity, upholding thus their collective code of honor to the last.

The 47 Ronin became a latter day legend and their tomb a national shrine at which many Japanese spend a quiet moment of contemplation each year. (The tomb of the Forty Seven is located a few minutes walk from Mita station in Tokyo).

Where the Inagaki version of this story is all color, pageantry, and swordplay, a typical TOHO spectacular, the Mizo version, in subtle shadings of black and white, is a far more penetrating study of the psychology and morality involved. It must be pointed out that the film was commissioned by the wartime Japanese government to foster the jingoistic Samurai spirit and it is much to Mizoguchi's credit that even under such pressure he was able to make a picture in which not a single sword fight is actually shown. All violent action, including the final assault on the Kira house, takes place off screen and is merely reported.

MIzoguchi was concerned not with action itself, but with the psychological effect of violent action on people not directly involved. {Talk about contemporary relevance to a place called Ferguson, 2014!} This indirect psychological approach to violence coupled with the famous Mizoguchi floating camera Style and his uncanny sense of pictorial composition combine to make this four hour film a lasting experience. If you approach this film looking for the usual Samurai chambara clichés you will be disappointed. The First Time I saw it a couple of years ago I must admit I was a little bored. Seeing it for the fourth time the other night, the flashier Inagaki version began to pale by comparison. But then MIzoguchi was a genius whereas Inagaki was merely a competent contract director. Give this a BIG FAT **********