Sazen
Director: Toshio Tsuda
Year: 2004
Production Company: Eden Entertainment
Running Time: 119 minutes
In the opening scene Sazen (Etsushi Toyokawa) is in a battle against
a group of samurai who come at him with swords at the ready. He quickly dispatches
most of them, but finally one samurai slips in and in a quick thrust takes
out Sazen’s eye and follows this up with a slashing chop to his right arm
and severs that. With one final swing, Sazen kills his attacker and collapses
to the ground. His lover Ofuji (Emi Wakui) finds him and carries him home.
Though this gets the film off to an action kick, it is also an early indication
that this won’t be a standard blood letting bonanza because the killing is
done with a near complete lack of bloodshed to the naked eye. The film continues
to be very conservative in this respect and along with its TV production
values it appears that the film was made very much for the general viewing
public of all ages.
The film jumps ahead to an undetermined time and now Sazen has become the
security guard in the business that Ofuji runs – sort of a casual friendly
drinking place with lovely hostesses to keep one company and with small bows
and arrows provided for fun and gaming. Most of the time Sazen lazily slouches
around and trades barbs with Ofuji about her singing and cooking, but still
carries his sword at his side. In a parallel thread, the lord of the prestigious
Yagyu family learns that an old jar had some writing inside that would lead
to a fortune of one million ryo, but he recalls that he gave it to his younger
brother Genzaburo (Hironobu Nomura) as a cheap wedding gift. Unfortunately,
Genzaburo's wife (Kumiko Aso) was so insulted by the gift that she sold it
to a wandering junk man. She now pushes Genzaburo out every day to look for
it, which he does with an indolent air of reluctance until he chances upon
Ofuji’s club and finds great enjoyment in simply lolling about there every
day flirting with the ladies.
In the meantime, a small boy has been orphaned by the death of his grandfather
and neither Sazen nor Ofuji has the heart to leave him on his own and though
both gruffly refuse to admit it they soon take him into their lives with
parental pleasure. They also take in his goldfish that just happen to be
in a jar – yes – that jar. The action perks up a bit when two rude samurai
cause a ruckus in the club and make fun of the cripple – the cripple soon
teaches them a lesson in manners but they have other samurai at their beck
and call. Once you begin to realize that this isn’t going to be a sword fest
and is for the most part a sweet comic almost Disney like film about Sazen
and the people around him, it is fairly enjoyable if far from exciting. He
and his wife make a great couple and their bickering relationship that is
clearly based on a deep love is the heart of the film.
My rating for this film: 6.0