Genroku chûshingura

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.

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 **********

Can we be honest?

This is WAY TOO LONG.

I'm a fan of japanese cinema and especially samurai films, but this 1941 flick was considered too long even by 1941 Japanese viewers.

There is no action the first two hours of this four-hour sanity test. It's just talking among courtiers with occasional nice cinematographic visuals of the grounds. Be forewarned: the ronin samurai are a dim afterthought here. This is almost exclusively about "government" bureaucrats scheming and infighting. In other words, this 4 hours is almost non-stop talking in medium shots.

Yes, the pace is slow, yes the movie is long; especially to our eyes used to modern (?) movie-making of the recent years that knows only two rhythms, ultra-fast and ultra-ultra-fast. Yet the story of those 47 ronins, at least for those of us patient enough to enter it, to let themselves flow into it, is all in all very interesting and says a lot about 18th-century Japan. This movie is remarkably well constructed and acted and while the rhythm is slow, it is also implacable : the good side of having a slow rhythm is that you can eventually accelerate, something that ultra-fast doesn't allow.

But most of all, I notice this : for a film that was supposed to take place into a war-propaganda effort, I do find this tribute to the traditional virtues of the Japanese warrior to be remarkably sober in tone and almost completely devoid of any rhetoric. So, I am not at all surprised to learn that it was a commercial insuccess when it was released in 1941 Japan : for the spirit and inspiration of 'The 47 Ronins' are much too elevated to fit the ultranationalist hysteria of the times.