Director: Nobuo Nakagawa

I suppose in most ways this is a standard period tale of a Wandering Yakuza Swordsman who has so much blood on his hands that he can never settle down, never return to a normal life. There is always someone out there looking for revenge for those he has killed - a family member, a friend, a member of the clan. This is such a common theme in Japanese films that I wonder where it originated. From their literature, legends or was it influenced by our Westerns which had similar themes? It makes for great cinema though - the Lone Man taking on the world and never in the same place for long - thus allowing the films to take in a lot of Japan. They become walking pictorials of rural Japan where the films had to be shot. It was of course the complete opposite of what was then contemporary Japanese society which had become based on stability, Salarymen and staying in the same company for their career. I am curious as to whether this theme was based on any historical reality or was a complete romantic fabrication of filmmakers and writers. Not that these Lone Wolfs were slicing and dicing large groups of men who were usually polite enough to stand back and attack him one at a time but that there were these wandering Yakuza's or Ronin's?


This has two things of note beyond the film itself. It is directed by Nobuo Nakagawa before he was famous for becoming the Godfather of Japanese horror. He had actually been directing films since the 1930s - every type - and it wasn't till a few years after this film that he directed Black Cat Mansion in 1958 that set him down that road. I love the period detail of this film - the small towns that are passed through, the inns they stay in and the costumes. It is a constant stream of people walking through the set, filling up the screen all differentiated by how they dress and what occupation they are performing. Usually just a drop by such as a bride on the road going to her wedding and the wonderful outfit she has on. I love the look of Japanese period films if done well as this one is. He made this for Shintoho Pictures, which was a small production house without the resources that some of the other studios had - and that is partly why they allowed Nobuo to later make the low budget horror films - they had nothing to lose. This is shot in black and white.


In one of his earliest films the lead actor is also of interest. A much thinner than we are used to - Tomisaburô Wakayama. His younger brother Katsu Shintaro was also just getting started in the film business. Their father was a well-known Kabuki actor who used the name Katsutōji Kineya. Both brothers entered into the business as well - Tomisaburô even toured America with an acting troupe. On the side though he was also studying martial arts. Shintaro studied the musical instrument the shamisen. It took me a few seconds to recognize Tomisaburô even though I knew he was in the film.  He was 26 at the time and still has a bit of a baby face and was yet to fill out into the hulking growling action star he was to become. Not that he doesn't acquit himself just fine in the action scenes in this one.



But this is more of a drama interrupted at times by short action scenes and is based on a play by Shin Hasegaw, who was famous for his dramatic works in the Matatabimono genre - wandering Yakuza . Chutaro is on a long quest to find his birth mother. She left him when he was five years old and he has been looking for her all over Japan. He is a Yakuza of sorts but does not belong to any clan. On his travels he picks up a companion, Hanji, who is a smaller older man and also a Yakuza who sells his services. The two of them come across a group of Clan men walking from the opposite direction and they clash, with Chutaro killing their leader. His clan keeps trying to kill Chutaro for the rest of the film - not with great success - in one scene he beats them off with a large water ladle. It is more a fun scene than a bloody one as Chutaro first introduces himself in Yakuza fashion before they get down to fighting. What these films often point out is that most of these characters in the films are not great swordsmen but when your Clan leader is killed you are called to duty.


Chutaro convinces Hanji to give up the Yakuza life and go be with his mother, sister and brother. But trouble follows him too and Chutaro has to save him from a couple of the Clan. Hanji's sister is a cutie pie played by Yôko Katsuragi and Chutaro begins to think that perhaps he too can settle down. Especially when he finds two very young girls walking on their own to get to their mother and takes them under his care. But first he desperately, painfully wants to find his mother (Isuzu Yamada - Throne of Blood, Yojimbo)  - it is a hole he needs to fill - who he is told owns a restaurant in Edo but every step of the way he is dogged by men looking for revenge.