Karami-ai

The suspense is for finding the answer to "Who's going to grab the inheritance?" Who will succeed? And how? As in a good Agatha Christie novel, we witness a parade of characters that, yes, want the money. And money... changes everything. Intrigue and double-crossing plans, jazz music, femme fatales that start to appear everywhere and a spectacular visual film in high contrast low-key lighting (pure chiaroscuro) within unbalanced frames that take the most of a full 2.40:1 aspect ratio.

Kobayashi is one of the finest directors, perhaps very underrated. A few months later he would shoot "Harakiri". He knew his craft. This is a solid film to enjoy.

A hugely satisfying noirish morality-play, THE INHERITANCE follows the succession proceedings of a nasty industrialist's estate when he's diagnosed with terminal cancer. Locking horns over this potential fortune are: scheming subordinates, his trophy-wife, a femme-fatale of a secretary and a battery of illegitimate heirs. In their quest to secure a bigger slice of the pie, we witness them forming suspicious alliances and ruthlessly resorting to impersonation, fraud, blackmail and even murder. It's so callously cynical in its outlook that a couple's implied incest is broached as "remember when" and then immediately dismissed to concentrate on the central deception. What's refreshing and what further augments the plot's universality is that instead of conveniently blaming the capitalist mentality, Kobayashi indicts human greed (sexual and material) - as the primary cause of moral decay. Though less flamboyant than his sadistic gangster turn in BLACK RIVER - Tatsuya Nakadai plays another ethically unsavory character who's tasked with locating one of his client's unacknowledged daughters. In addition to its themes and characters, the film's noir credentials are further bolstered by a wonderfully moody jazz score and narrative voice-over.

Masaki Kobayashi finished his epic, humanist, three-part tale of World War II, and his next film couldn't be further from that. The Inheritance is a hardnosed look at one rich man trying to figure out who to give his fortune to on the event of his death from cancer within the next few months and the ensuing explosion of conspiring and backstabbing that erupts from that news, all with a certain jazzy, noir feel to it. This is the more obviously cynical Kobayashi of Black River rather than the earnest humanist from The Human Condition.

Senzo (So Yamamura) has received word that he has cancer. Well, he hasn't actually received word because, much like as is shown in Ikiru, it was common practice for doctors to lie to their patients about terminal illnesses. Still, he figures it out. He goes from a captain of industry, working endlessly everyday for forty years, to a quiet, contemplative man. His young secretary Yasuko (Keiko Kishi) notices and puts the pieces together herself before he actually tells her. He has a young wife, his former secretary Satoe (Misako Watanabe), and three illegitimate children that he has no contact with. In accordance with Japanese law, he must give at least one-third to his wife, but he wants to determine what to do with the rest. He wants his people to track down his three children, bring them to him without revealing his relationship to them or his motives for seeing them, and letting him decide if he wants to share the other two-thirds of his fortune with them or not.

And so starts the rat race. Satoe is angry because she feels like she deserves the entirety of the fortune as his wife, though she seems to have no real feeling for him, and he doesn't seem to have much towards her either. She conspires with Senzo's assistant Fujii (Minoru Chiaki) to find the seven-year-old girl he's assigned to discover no matter what so that she can become the girl's guardian. Yoshida (Seiji Miyaguchi) is assigned the second-oldest child to find, and he sends his assistant Furukawa (Tatsuya Nakadai) to find her. The eldest child, Senzo sends Yasuko to find, a young man born in Manchuria but living in Tokyo at that time.

Satoe is conspiring with Fujii, but it turns out that the girl died. Fujii decides to find another girl of the same age without parents in an orphanage to pass off as Senzo's heiress. Furukawa meets with Muri, the seventeen-year-old girl, and acts as a gatekeeper so that she will keep him in the loop if and when she inherits. Yasuko is given her task and seems to have no ulterior motive. However, when Senzo becomes too sick to go into the office anymore, especially after a surgery that removes three-quarters of his stomach, he insists that Yoshida take an extra room at his house. After Yasuko refuses to sleep with him one night, he begins a sexual relationship with Yoshida that leads to her getting pregnant. I think you can see where this is going to go.

Everyone is out for the money, and the only question is who is going to stay in it to the end. Revelations are revealed, Senzo dies, and more revelations are revealed. None of these characters are really rootable. They're all out for themselves with no concern for the wishes of the old man who actually earned everything beyond how they can manipulate him, even, in the end, Yasuko.

And that's kind of Kobayashi's point. The insane wealth up for grabs is completely corrupting. Even the young, quiet, and innocent female secretary is open to selling her body for access to the money. She always could leave, go find another secretary job somewhere, but she remains because of the potential life of ease up for grabs that we see at the opening of the film (the story being told in flashback as she has tea with Yoshida).

The lack of emotional connection keeps me at a small distance from the action, but the action itself is still a tense exercise and look at the corrupt side of human nature. Where Kaji refused to accept that he has lost it all and kept his efforts to retain his humanity in The Human Condition, Yasuko simply gives in completely. It's an interesting contrast in that light as well.

I don't envy Kobayashi Masaki. Having made some utterly stellar films in his career, his other works will necessarily be judged against them, at least in part. Thankfully, though, 1962's 'The inheritance' plainly demonstrates what a strong filmmaker the man was even outside of his most celebrated pictures. The premise isn't so outwardly striking, yet the drama is increasingly fierce, taking on significant airs of film-noir; as dying wealthy businessman Kawara Senzo prepares his will and seeks his illegitimate children, schemes upon schemes take root and all involved parties reveal their true selves. In no time the viewing experience becomes deeply absorbing and outright fascinating, and even if it's not an outright revelation in the same manner as 'Harakiri' or 'Samurai rebellion,' ultimately I'd have no qualms in naming this as one of Kobayashi's resounding successes.

Working from Nanjo Norio's novel, screenwriter Inagaki Koichi penned an outstanding screenplay that's rich and downright intoxicating from top to bottom. However characters might first present they show themselves to be not just complex and vibrant as written but roundly, willfully scurrilous in their own ways, usually while adopting a thin facade of innocence or propriety. Each in and of themselves is so interesting that this rather becomes worth watching just for them, and that's to say nothing of the rest of the writing, equally flush with ingenious subtlety as events progress. The dialogue is stark and biting, driving to the core of the characterizations and the plot, and each scene in turn bears a wondrous vitality with deliciously thick, underhanded tension and cutting intelligence. The narrative itself is so brilliant and spellbinding that this became another relatively rare instance of a movie I could not tear my eyes away from - and though it's mostly just on account of how raptly compelling the saga is in its own right, the precise fashion in which information comes out and events unfold is a masterstroke that left me giddily smiling again and again.

All this is very much a credit as well to the cast. Splendid nuance in the acting belies the cold shrewdness and less sure-footed emotions at play, a tactfulness expressiveness that feeds directly into the deceit and trickery on hand in the plot. It hardly even seems fair to highlight some stars over others, though Kishi Keiko is terrific in the lead role of Yasuko (I couldn't help but cheer her at a small moment in the last minutes), and even as Yamamura So's part as Kawara is more restrictive he commands imposing presence and temperament. This is to say nothing of Watanabe Misako, Nakadai Tatsuya, Yoshimura Mari, Miyaguchia Seiji, Chiaki Minoru, or the many others on hand. As Kobayasha guides his actors and shapes the whole as director, he sustains a ferocious energy that builds alongside the story, a sort of intensity that draws us in all the more. His jidaigeki of the 60s in particular thoroughly accentuated the patient mindfulness that Kobayashi bore as a filmmaker, letting pressure grow until the ideal psychological moment for the feature to explode - and though 'The inheritance' isn't so grandiose, the outcome is pretty much just as invigorating.

Composer extraordinaire Takemitsu Toru lends a marvelously flavorful score that meshes neatly with the seedy goings-on of the story, and I can scarcely imagine this without that music. Everything else here is really just as fantastic, from the costume design, hair, and makeup, to the sets, to Kawamata Takashi's smart cinematography and Uraoka Keiichi's keen editing. It's Inagaki's script that really shines here, however, hand in hand with the acting and Kobayashi's direction, and one way or another the end result is a title that's as darkly entertaining as it is tremendously engrossing. As I go through Kobayashi's oeuvre it's safe to say that I have high expectations, and though not all his productions are equal, I'm firmly of the mind that this is altogether excellent and easily counts among his best. Whether one has a specific reason to watch or is just looking for something good to watch, I can hardly recommend 'The inheritance' any more highly. As an avid cinephile this was simply a joy, and this is one picture that's well worth seeking out!

Worked through all of Kobayashi's higher profile movies during 2020, but it'll be nice if his less well-known stuff all turns out to be as good as this.

The story isn't quite as engaging as the narratives displayed in The Human Condition trilogy, Harakiri, or Kwaidan, but it's still interesting for most of its runtime.

I did like the noir feel, especially the jazzy soundtrack and the voiceover, and it's nice to see a female protagonist (who isn't your typical femme fatale) in a noirish movie like this.

It's probably a more minor work in his overall filmography, but yeah, still pretty good.