Kiru

Master swordsman Raizo Ichikawa comes home to find his sister dead and his father dying. Before that happens, he is old a long story about how his real mother assassinated her husband's evil mistress, fled with a samurai, and was captured by by her clan. No one would kill her, so it fell to her lover, who gave him to the man Ichikawa thought was his father.

It'ss one of those weird movies that the Japanese enjoyed back then, in which people do horrible things to seek vengeance in beautiful surroundings where the birds chirp. It's directed by Kenji Misumi, who would begin directing the Zatoichi series that very year. It's quite lovely and quite alien to my understanding. Perhaps you will get more out of it than I did.

The same year he directed the first of the Zatoichi series, Kenji Misumi directed this tale based on a famous novel by Renzaboro Shibata. With an eye for composition, Misumi created an amazing bit of visual cinema.

The story follows the adult life of Shingo, a humble orphan raised by a low ranking samurai. He decides to to wander Japan for three years and returns with an unexpected new skill; he can bring swordsmen to their knees quaking in fear just with a sword pose. This technique, unfortunately brings tragedy to Shingo's family and he ends up wandering in misery after they are killed by jealous samurai.

There are marked similarities with Misumi's later film, "Ken Ki" which is also based on a book by Renzaboro Shibata. Unfortunately in this film, unlike "Ken Ki" and like many other films based on a famous novel, much of the story seems to be told in short hand as if the audience is expected to be familiar with the story and characters already. It's a testament to Misumi's talent that the movie works so well visually, we can forgive the odd jumps in time and the sparse character development. Curious since the movie is unusually short for a Japanese film. By 40 minutes in the movie settles down and everything works much better dramatically. Some of the shots are amazing masterpieces of composition. The action is well done.

If you are looking for more rounded entertainment, I recommend "Ken Ki" over this. That is not to say that this film isn't with rewards of it's own but it's a demanding work to watch.

The DVD I saw had an original trailer for "Kiru". It strangely contains a scene that wasn't in the film. This scene is very interesting as it ends in an extreme bit of action that foretells Misumi's later work with the Lone Wolf series.

On paper, this may seem like another in a long line of Daiei star vehicles for their leading box office draw, Raizo Ichikawa. Misumi himself had already directed him in a few of those potboilers (the SATAN'S SWORD trilogy). I dunno if it should be ascribed to the zealousness of a young director eager to break free from the constraints of studio production-line film-making, if Misumi intended it as a calling card that would help him graduate into the A-list club that included Masaki Kobayashi and others, or if, concerns about status be damned, it should serve as exhibit A in the case many of us have been trying to make about Misumi as a righteous auteur with a directorial voice all his own separate from the bulk of genre filmmakers, but Kiru screams stylized masterpiece even from its opening prologue and it's obvious it was pieced together with great care and superior craftsmanship.

The slow deliberate pacing and eliptical minimalist storytelling one would sooner find in an art-house film than a chambara is broken by sudden bursts of violence, these emphasizing not bodycount and arterial sprays but beautiful choreography between camera and characters, with the killings often as not taking place off screen. In filtering his chambara dynamics through a meditative mood, in giving more weight on the preparation rather than the fight (with duels edited in a Leone fashion a few years before Leone, tight closeups of eyes and bodies et al), Kiru soars above anything else Daiei was producing at the time to occupy the same stylized moody genre space others like Jean Pierre Melville would arrive years later. The gloomy fatalism and visual grammar is all Misumi's though and it would continue to show up in his work in the coming years, although stunning shots like the circular overhead shot of Ichikawa opening doors in search of his boss would rarely be repeated.

Misumi may never get the critical acclaim and Criterions other of his peers who created in genre film-making like Yasuzo Masumura (also in Daiei), Masahiro Shinoda (in Shochiku) and Seijun Suzuki (in Nikkatsu) have enjoyed because he never got on board the Japanese New Wave wagon, but Kiru is proof enough that he was one of the master directors of his generation.

"A solitary life is agony. Even so, I am not lonely. I close my eyes, and feel Fujiko's warmth flow through me. Those beautiful eyes gaze intently at me. She lives. We are together. We are both alive."

I loved this film's simplicity, its beautiful cinematography, and the moments where a character makes a sacrifice, without hesitation, such as when the samurai agrees to take in the sister of a man he's never met. There is a feeling of a tragic destiny from birth, and a melancholy that is pervasive as he sees so many loved ones die in this cruel world. It's as if he has been separated from humanity since day one, and is a walking ghost, unable to marry. His intimidating fighting stance is deemed "heretical" because his opponents know that it can only be defeated if they perish too, implying he's willing to die each time he uses it (never mind how they know this so certainly, they're the experts). Despite all of life's hardships and despite being doomed, he is a man of dignity and honor, and there's something profound in reacting this way, since on a smaller scale we all face hardships, the death of loved ones, and our own ultimate demise.

While the film was touching in that way, it seemed to me that it would have benefitted from a richer story, one told over longer than just 71 minutes. I also thought the fight choreography was a little subpar, even allowing for Misumi's restrained approach. Where he absolutely gets it right is in moments like when the samurai is shot racing from room to room looking for his master overhead. For those kinds of moments and for the feeling of this one, it's worth seeing.

Unusual tale of Samurai on late 19th century, a child was adopted by a loyal man at request from his Samurai's clan's boss, when he reach at thirty years old, he asking to his father make a journey to somewhere for three years, backing home his father realize that him became a fabulous and skillful Samurai during the long travel, a jealous neighbor reveal the secret to him, which he actually is an adopted son, then his mother already death was his first shadow, your sister that will be killed afterward, was the second and strange woman that was put in his hands to protect her was killed in onward, all them were killed in some way, so he decide to find out who is his real father, the director made a fascinating minimalist scenes, many close up and the shooting on large empty spaces, birds singing are spreading in some specific scenes on purpose, an unusual score neither, anyway, visually wonderful on bright colors, also he printed a stylish fights, the storyline and the action are fuzzy and a bit slow paced, however won't disappoint anyone who like Samurai's pictures!!!

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First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.5