THE STORY – When Lord Murashige Araki rises up against the tyrannical Nobunaga Oda, he finds himself besieged within the walls of his own castle. Isolated, he is confronted with a series of mysterious crimes that shatter the fragile order of his court, plunging the fortress into fear and suspicion.
THE CAST – Masahiro Motoki, Masaki Suda, Yuriko Yoshitaka, Munetaka Aoki & Ryota Miyadate
THE TEAM – Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 147 Minutes
A title like “The Samurai and the Prisoner” immediately conjures up a very specific set of cinematic images: swords being drawn, banners flying, and men in ornate armor hurling themselves into battle. But a second look at the film’s info will give a clue as to the actual type of film it is. It’s directed by the Japanese master Kiyoshi Kurosawa, perhaps best known for nerve-shredding horror like “Cure” and “Pulse.” His name isn’t one that’s usually tied to visceral action spectacle. Therefore, it’s not surprising that the film is more interested in grounded human interaction, specifically the fascinating relationship between the two titular characters. In fact, the most laudable quality of “The Samurai and the Prisoner” is its curious humanity, avoiding the fulfillment of expectations in a way that turns out to be thematically relevant. It’s a complicated, twisting journey, told with elegance and patience.
The film wastes no time establishing the paired dynamic foreshadowed by the title. The former figure is Lord Murashige Araki (a powerfully authoritative Masahiro Motoki), a real-life figure in 16th-century Japan who unexpectedly severed his allegiance to the leader Nobunaga Oda, shutting himself up in his castle. The prisoner is Kanbei Kuroda (Masaki Suda), an apparently genius strategist whom Murashiga is forced to consult with when a series of mysterious acts of betrayal start to occur in his supposedly secure fortress. Told in four chapters, one for each season, the film falls into an identifiable rhythm. Murashige’s paranoia becomes understandable when it’s quickly made clear that there are some within his ranks who are working to undermine his authority by carrying out these bizarre crimes. Each segmented season gets its own strange misdeed, which Murashige must solve, using Kanbei’s brilliance to help solve each case.
Kanbei doesn’t make it easy, refusing to give his captor immediately clear answers to his dilemmas. In that way, “The Samurai and the Prisoner” more closely resembles “The Silence of the Lambs” than a war film. Kurosawa slowly lets his audience in on the truths of each matter at the same pace that Murashige discovers them, giving viewers little to no insight into anything outside of the character’s perspective. At times, this purposeful withholding can make the film’s puzzling energy feel impenetrable rather than enigmatically inviting. Starting with the opening text, lots and lots of proper nouns are thrown out via dialogue only, not offering a visual companion for many of the referenced names and places. It’s a lot to take in, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the story’s many, many layers. Of course, this helps us feel as far from the truth as Murashige does, masterfully aligning the audience with the film’s central character.
But that doesn’t mean that Murashige is a vacant character serving merely as a stand-in for the audience. Notably, he has a distaste for killing, even the types of executions and noble suicides for which the samurai are legendarily known. His ostensible gentility makes things difficult for him, especially as he must continually deal with the fallout of violence around him. But if he hadn’t spared Kanbei’s life, locking him up in the dungeon despite the prisoner’s pleas for death, he’d have no way of getting to the bottom of the mysteries he faces. And just as Murashige isn’t a typical samurai, the film itself isn’t a typical samurai movie. Kurosawa pointedly sidesteps the visceral action and cinematic flair typical of the subgenre (although the film might have benefited from a more present musical score to help make the film more engaging). This is a film about the reaction to historic events rather than the events themselves, mirroring the way that those of us in the present day must retroactively reckon with the deeds of those who came before us, using only sources and references rather than firsthand experience.
Motoki is so assured in his authority in his performance as Murashige, it’s as if Kurosawa traveled through time and brought back an actual samurai from yesteryear to anchor his film. And although his dominating qualities are clear from his general presence, he has an approachability to him that points to his character’s pacifist beliefs. Matching the fluid, gentle movement of Kurosawa’s camera, he glides through his castle like a nimble military barge, expertly carrying out the director’s deliberate blocking. The powerful weight he brings to his character also makes the moments where Murashige’s stoic presentation briefly vanishes in instances of stress even more effective, reminding the audience that he is, in fact, human. Suda delivers a more on-the-surface emotive performance, with a gregarious energy that makes his benevolent keeper’s strange alignment with him completely understandable.
Much as its main character tries to untangle seemingly impossible conundrums, viewers of “The Samurai and the Prisoner” will find themselves leaning in and working hard to discern the film’s intriguing details. It’s not a task for those who look to cinema as an escape, requiring aggressive attention from its audience, as all worthwhile art should. But it’s a compelling riddle of a film that rewards those willing to invest themselves fully into its surprisingly gentle, beautiful world.
