Bushi no ichibun

A young samurai, married to a beautiful woman, accidentally becomes blind for life. This is the intimate story of what happens to this couple in mid-nineteenth-century Japan. Finding personal honor, love for oneself and for the woman one loves, finding a purpose for living. Director Yamada tells us this with an increasingly engaging and intimate narrative style. In my opinion very refined in the feelings it wants to convey, accurate in the scenic reconstructions of daily life of the time. Worth seeing if you liked, also by Yamada, Twilight of the Samurai (2002) even if it does not reach the depths of story, feelings and direction.

Others have commented on the story so I will skip the synopsis.

The story is about human drama, and the unusual talent the main character has that leads to bombastic climax. This is typical Shuhei Fujisawa's style, and this story is no exception.

What took away from the story compared to other Shuhei Fujisawa based movie is the poor acting by Takuya Kimura. His impatient and jittery personality shows in his acting, and the poor ways he speaks the dialog all takes away from the proper mood of the story. As the member of SMAP - a Japanese idol group, his acting DNA was bread for more modern situation, and probably isn't a good match for a period drama like this one. I couldn't get the feeling that this was a samurai living several hundred years ago. His poor dialog skill also was evident in more recent movie Uchuu Senkan Yamato as well. Another period piece starring his SMAP colleague Shingo Katori's "Zatoichi The Final" was also a flop, attesting to the mismatch of SMAP member with samurai movies.

So the main focus was weak, but the movie still has quality all its own. The sword fight scene was superb like other Fujisawa novel based movies. As a samurai movie, this is still one of the best in recent years, and is recommended along with other Shuhei Fujisawa movies such as Hisshiken Torizashi, and Hana no Ato.

Yoji Yamada's appropriately dubbed 'Love and Honor' is a samurai's story of just that; Takuya Kimura is Mimura, a samurai who is used to test food for poisoning by eating it in order to prevent the lord of his clan from being poisoned. Mimura becomes blind after being fed an off-season food that can become poisonous if not prepared properly. Unable to provide for himself, Mimura becomes suicidal. His loving wife Kayo declares her support for him, offering to follow him into death. Mimura is convinced to continue on living, but with Mimura unable to provide for he and his family, his wife is left to find a way to support them. In this classic tale of love and honor, follow a blind man's struggles to find peace of mind as he tries to follow his samurai code.

Both the setting of the theme and the creation of the emotional atmosphere tend to make the film more romantic. And exquisite detail guarantees the reliability that a drama about ancient Japan should have. Although the film mainly focuses on the daily life of a samurai, the director Yôji Yamada still gave a little bit of chivalric romance to the ending. However, there is no coexistence between the everyday life and the spirit of a samurai. Therefore, the protagonist's choice finally writes a summary for this passing era.

A low-ranking samurai, jaded with his dull daily routine, finds himself tested to the core when his food-tasting assignment leaves him blind.

Yoji Yamada's project exploring samurai in transition expands, having had an outing in Twilight Samurai. That movie had Hiroyuki Sanada in the starring role, and the constantly under-achieving Takuya Kimura was always going to be a hard sell in this role for some. However, he stands up competently here. Shinnojo wakens blind and immediately becomes suicidal. He is granted a healthy stipend of rice from the authorities, and the slow dawning of its true price inexorably works on Shinnojo, eventually becoming too much to bear. This delicately paced transition is plotted by Kimura's expressions, from self-loathing to acceptance to vengeful warrior, with loving husband always present.

Kaori Momoi parades her usual quirky genius, but Rei Dan as loving, loyal wife Kayo is the stand-out performance here. Kayo's burden proves equal to her husband's, and Dan earns our sympathy as the compromised spouse.

The film doesn't quite achieve the delicacy and pathos of Twilight Samurai, but it does add another dimension to the humanistic portrayal of the samurai that is Yamada's trope. For that reason alone, Love and Honour is worth checking out.