Daisatsujin orochi

A serious young student at a popular dojo is pressured into taking the blame for a treacherous murder in order to save the family of his lovely and devoted fiancé. The real world, which exists outside of the stuffy and hypocritical confines of samurai society, pounds (but does not flatten) the once-idealistic man with unforgettable and incredible bad luck. He endures a number of trials, only to return and discover how dishonorable his elite comrades truly are. And this is only the beginning! However grim the viewer might speculate the outcome to be, there is no second-guessing the resolution of this amazing tale. The climactic fight scene even puts "Enter the Dragon" and "Sword of Doom" to shame.

This is one of Raizo Ichikawa's finest performances, from both the dramatic interpretation and physical prowess standpoints, and it demonstrates why nearly four decades after his early death from cancer, Ichikawa remains one of the most popular Japanese film stars of all time. In a culture that values dogged persistence from its heroes, Ichikawa was one of a very select group of actors who could create a believable model of this virtue.

Before watching "The Betrayal" (Daisatsujin orochi,) I thought only Kenji Misumi could choreograph such brilliant fight scenes, but director Tokuzo Tanaka scored a place at the top with this film. I cross-checked his BO and found that he was AD on "Rashomon" and "Ugetsu." Anyone who sharpened his steel under Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi would definitely have a few good chops, as Tanaka demonstrates here.

Tokuzo Tanaka will most likely never be mentioned in the pantheon of Japanese directors. For someone who started out as an assistant director to Kenji Mizoguchi, he doesn't seem to have carved out his own niche or acquired those qualities that would mark him separate from the legion of bread-and-butter directors that slaved away in the Japanese studios of the time. Whatever passing popularity the most well known films in his oeuvre have enjoyed is mostly a byproduct of the marketable name franchises he worked in, yet THE BETRAYAL suggests a strong classicist gloom one usually expects to get from directors of Masaki Kobayashi's calibre.

Indeed it is Masaki Kobayashi the opening of the film brings to mind, an evocation of that particular gloomy kind of ancient Greek tragedy transposed in a Tokugawa Japan setting where social injustice is allowed to be perpetrated by a caste of people who can afford to hide the injustice behind a rigid samurai ethos, a skewed code of military honor that can't afford to be proved wrong or found guilty because that would negate that very semblance of honor which sustains it, because a samurai vassal can privately say "we were wrong, you are not the killer we've been looking for" but can't admit the same publicly for fear of dishonoring his own clan.

As good as the central premise of the film is (a samurai vassal agrees to take the blame for a murder he didn't commit for the sake of his clan and exile himself from his home and wife but in the condition that his name will be cleared in one year), as simple and brilliant and classic and lending itself to the combination of gripping revenge drama and scathing anti-samurai critique that made SEPPUKU such an astounding film, the middle of THE BETRAYAL is a bit too disjointed and scattershot, despite the occasional bout of swordfighting spread a little too thin and allowed to sprawl over a dozen different places and encounters that more often than not happen because the plot must be forwarded along. A convincing reason why the exiled samurai takes a peasant as his sidekick for example is never given. He just tags along for the ride so that he can betray Judas-like his master in the end. When the samurai is wounded, a beautiful woman magically comes along to heal him back to life, and whereas this kind of episodic nature is to be expected in a Nemuri Kyoshiro b-movie, the kind of pulpy chambara Raizo Ichikawa and Tokuzo Tanaka knew all too well, it fails to milk the brilliant premise to its full potential. The drama between hunters and hunted is never allowed to gestate and mature past a quick swordfight. Even when the exiled samurai, now hunted by his own clan too, has to face off with his sensei, the outcome lacks the dramatic punch of a Kobayashi or Okamoto, not the dialogue or action but the silent gloomy calm before the storm.

In the end Tanaka almost redeems himself for every opportunity missed by staging one of the most gigantic swordfighting spectacles in chambara history, a giant set-piece that involves Raizo Ichikawa single-handedly cutting down three armies of extras, a fight that were it not for its lack of blood and nihilism would rank up there with the best in LONE WOLF AND CUB. The most telling moment of what's good in the film happens in that fight. Having disposed more than 100 enemy soldiers, Raizo's sword breaks and he's been clutching the grip for so long and so hard that he has to unlock his fingers one by one so he can pick another sword.

I first read about The Betrayal in Patrick Galloway's excellent book Warring Clans, Flashing Blades. Galloway highly praised this film starring Raizo Ichikawa from the Kyoshiro Nemuri/Sleepy Eyes of Death series.

For most of the film's running time I was somewhat surprised by Galloway's enthusiasm. The plot involves an honorable samurai (Ichikawa) who allows himself to go into exile after a samurai of a rival clan is stabbed in the back (well, slashed actually). The honorable samurai did not commit the deed, but because the ones who did will not come forward, our hero agrees to leave the area and thus become the prime suspect of the killing. The hero sacrifices his happiness for the good of his clan. Supposedly, this exile is only to be for a year while the clan's boss works out a deal with the rival clan, but things do not go as planned.

Most of the film charts our hero's growing disillusionment with the samurai code. The Betrayal is not the only film to cover this ground. Harakiri, Onibaba, Samurai Rebellion, and Ugetsu have all, in more meaningful ways, called into question the role of the samurai. Therefore, while I liked the story well enough, I did not understand Galloway's praise. That is until I got to the film's last twenty minutes. When the hero finally has to face his former clan, the viewer is treated to a dizzying killfest that approaches the Lone Wolf and Cub movies (no blood sprays or severed body parts though). Ichikawa sells this sequence. He throws all of his energy into this action scene.

I am still not as gung-ho about the film as Galloway was. I find it just a slightly above average programmer (admittedly, a downbeat one) until that finale. However, that is some ending sequence.

It's been a while since I watched a good samurai movie, so was pleased to find that The Betrayal really scratched that itch. It almost feels like a Hitchcock-esque "man accused of doing something he didn't actually do, and going on the run" type of plot, except done with samurais instead of spies.

At just 87 minutes, I will say that although it goes by pretty quickly, the pacing's not always fantastic. There's a good deal of stopping and starting that can make some scenes feel repetitive, and I feel like that's especially true of some of the small skirmishes that play out through the film's first two acts. The action's not bad; just a little samey.

But much is forgiven when it comes to the final 15-20 minutes, which has a huge amount of action, and it's generally really well-choreographed. There's some ambitious camera movement in this big final action scene, too, and it overall looks like it would have taken ages to film (and there are so many extras in a few of the shots - almost like a small army).

At the risk of sounding bloodthirsty: it's a shame the action was bloodless. I don't need it splashing all over the place, but a well-timed blood spray here and there is often the icing on the cake when it comes to samurai action, and I don't remember a drop of blood being spilled in this movie, despite a bodycount that might approach 100.

(Also, in the subtitles for the version I watched, "saké" was spelled "sak," which was kind of funny every time).