A provincial lord kills and rapes with impunity, but no-one can touch him because he's the Shogun's younger brother. After one of the wronged parties publicly commits hara-kiri, a minister decides enough is enough and, though his hands are officially tied, drops big hints to a trusted samurai before telling him the Japanese equivalent of 'this conversation never took place'.
The samurai gathers eleven others (the twelfth will join them later), tells them it's a suicide mission (naturally they're all up for it) and they hatch a plan to ambush the evil lord on the long journey from Edo (the ancient name for Tokyo) to his home province. But the would-be assassins are outnumbered four to one by the lord's crack team of bodyguards, whose leader is a resourceful man...
This is the first of Eiichi Kudo's films I've seen, and now I can't wait to watch the others. Like Masaki Kobayashi's Hara-Kiri and Rebellion, it's in fabulous widescreen black and white. The sprawling cast of characters is a little confusing at first, but gradually some of the individual samurai begin to stand out from the crowd - the cool swordsman, the cynical wastrel, the joker with gambling debts.
There aren't really any memorable duels like the one in Hara-Kiri, but the final battle is terrific. The samurai take over a village, convert it into one big labyrinthine mousetrap, and close off alternative routes to ensure their target and his men will end up there. It's a superbly choreographed and sustained set-piece, and unbelievably tense. There are several similarities with The Seven Samurai; Kudo provides us in advance with a map of the area in which the showdown will take place, and ensures the two sides can be easily distinguished from one another by the hue of their costumes, so even though the action is chaotic, we don't get lost.
Highly recommended for fans of The Seven Samurai and Jidaigeki in general. If you can read French subtitles, it's available on a beautifully restored Region 2 DVD in a boxed set from the French company Wild Side. If British or American DVD distributors have any sense, they'll get it subtitled into English as well.
The samurai gathers eleven others (the twelfth will join them later), tells them it's a suicide mission (naturally they're all up for it) and they hatch a plan to ambush the evil lord on the long journey from Edo (the ancient name for Tokyo) to his home province. But the would-be assassins are outnumbered four to one by the lord's crack team of bodyguards, whose leader is a resourceful man...
This is the first of Eiichi Kudo's films I've seen, and now I can't wait to watch the others. Like Masaki Kobayashi's Hara-Kiri and Rebellion, it's in fabulous widescreen black and white. The sprawling cast of characters is a little confusing at first, but gradually some of the individual samurai begin to stand out from the crowd - the cool swordsman, the cynical wastrel, the joker with gambling debts.
There aren't really any memorable duels like the one in Hara-Kiri, but the final battle is terrific. The samurai take over a village, convert it into one big labyrinthine mousetrap, and close off alternative routes to ensure their target and his men will end up there. It's a superbly choreographed and sustained set-piece, and unbelievably tense. There are several similarities with The Seven Samurai; Kudo provides us in advance with a map of the area in which the showdown will take place, and ensures the two sides can be easily distinguished from one another by the hue of their costumes, so even though the action is chaotic, we don't get lost.
Highly recommended for fans of The Seven Samurai and Jidaigeki in general. If you can read French subtitles, it's available on a beautifully restored Region 2 DVD in a boxed set from the French company Wild Side. If British or American DVD distributors have any sense, they'll get it subtitled into English as well.