Sword of the Beast (1965)

Hideo Gosha is one of Japan’s finest jidaigeki directors and with his second feature, Sword of the Beast, he firmly set a course for what are considered two of the genre’s best, Tenchu and Goyokin. Although not the greatest or splashiest samurai film around, it’s well conceived and crafted with the measured assurance of an early John Ford Western that portends even greater things to come.

It’s appropriate to mention a legendary Hollywood director like John Ford when discussing a movie by Gosha. The two filmmakers share similarities, including a mastery of their respective genres and the ability to form lasting collaborations with favored actors. In the case of Gosha, it was Tatsuya Nakadai who became his John Wayne, but before that there was Mikijiro Hiro (Adventures of Zatoichi), a genre regular who starred in Gosha’s first two movies.

As in Three Outlaw Samurai, Hiro finds himself rebelling against authority, this time as low-ranking samurai Gennosuke Yuuki, who finds himself on the run from his own clan after killing its leader. It turns out that he was unwittingly manipulated by the second-in-command under the guise of speeding reforms, but in reality to get the old man out of the way for the junior leader to step in. This theme of corruption forcing the common man into dire straits as Japan’s samurai class face an uncertain future in the latter half of the 19th century comes up frequently in samurai films. A similar plot occurs in Kihachi Okamoto’s Kill!

Trailing Gennosuke is the clan leader’s determined daughter Misa (Toshie Kimura), her fiance and Gennosuke’s friend Daizaburo Torio (Kantaro Suga) and the clan’s fierce swordmaster Gundayu Katori. Gennosuke eventually joins a would-be prospector with aims to poach gold from a mountain river belonging to the Shogun. But their plans are complicated by three opportunistic thugs and a couple already panning gold in the area.

Jurota Yamane (Go Kato), a mere squire in another clan is determined to make a better life for himself and his wife by secretly panning gold for his clan, even if that means turning his wife over to the greedy thugs or killing anyone who ventures near, including Gennosuke. Yet it is Gennosuke who is the first to realize that Jurota’s clan leader has no intention of letting anyone come off the mountain alive, just as his pursuers catch up with him, forcing Gennosuke to stand his ground.

Gosha smartly kicks off the movie by giving the viewer a misleading image of Gennosuke. He appears to be a little more than a common criminal with dirt-stained feet cornered in a wheat field. Although fearful of capture, he lustfully falls into the arms of a prostitute sent in to distract him. After an exciting chase though the field with little more than sword tips seen above the wheat, Gennosuke climbs onto a horse and gallops off vowing to run forever despite his pursuers’ calls to face punishment like a samurai. In this context, our hero is hardly heroic. Yet, though flashbacks and Gennosuke’s handling of the crisis to come, it becomes clear that like many a jidaigeki protagonist, he’s a genuine samurai living in a disingenuous time.

Eschewing the stylized action and manga leanings of his contemporaries, Gosha focuses on rock solid direction and storytelling convention. On the down side, this method doesn’t allow for his film to stand out from the pack, especially considering that by 1965 the jidaigeki had already reached its full maturity thanks to other film masters like Akira Kurosawa and Masahiro Makino. Yet everything is well done, from framing and lighting (a specialty at Shochiku studios) to engaging characters and purposeful swordplay action. In other words, Sword of the Beast is just good filmmaking.

Gosha’s main hook or angle is the defining of man as beast and while he does a solid job of handling it, it’s not as fleshed out or as boldly stated as it could have been. Gosha overcame this minor drawback in subsequent works.