by Andrea Grunert

Okamoto Kihachi (1) started his career as an assistant to several famous directors of Japanese cinema, including Makino Masahiro, Naruse Mikio and Honda Ishirō. He made his directorial debut in 1958 with All About Marriage (Kekkon no subete), a romantic comedy. But he very soon turned to other genres and in 1959, he made his first war film, the satire Desperado Outpost (Dokuritsu gurentai), followed two years later by the sequel Westward Desperado (Dokuritsu gurentai nishi-e). Okamoto also directed several crime genre films. His spy film The Age of Assassins (Satsujinkyō jidai, 1967) once again contains satirical elements as does his jidai geki film Kill! (Kiru, 1968). Jidai geki films are set in the Tokugawa period from 1603 to 1868, and Okamoto’s original approach in this film left an undeniable mark on the genre. Other jidai geki masterpieces that he directed undoubtedly include Sword of Doom (Dai-bosatsu tōge, 1966) and Samurai Assassin (Samurai), the latter being the focus of this article.
Produced by Tōhō Studios and Mifune Productions (2), the film stars Mifune Toshirō, who was already cast in a supporting role in All About Marriage. The film from 1958 marked the beginning of a long period of collaboration of the two men, who worked together on ten films. The script of Samurai Assassin was written by Hashimoto Shinobu, one of Kurosawa Akira’s usual collaborators, and is based on a novel by Gunji Jirōmasa.

The historical context
The action is set in February and early March 1860 in Edo (present-day Tokyo) and focuses on the attempt by a group of rebels to assassinate Ii Naosuke (Matsumoto Kōshirō VIII), the Great Elder, a high ranking official during the shogunate whose status could roughly be compared to that of a modern-day prime minister (3). The period depicted in the film is known as Bakumatsu (“end of the Bakufu”; the Bakufu denoting government by the shogun), a period of great turmoil sparked off by the arrival of American ships in Edo Bay in 1853. The threatening attitude of the Americans put an end to the isolationist policy that Japan had maintained since the 17th century. Bakumatsu ended in 1868 with the abolition of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial rule. Ii, the most powerful official of his time, was a supporter of the Tokugawa shogunate and favoured opening the country up to international trade. However, his policy encountered strong opposition from imperialist loyalists, mainly from those in the provinces Mito, Chōshū and Satsuma, to which Ii responded with violence by ordering the “Ansei Purge” (1858-1860), during which a large number of individuals suspected being disloyal to the Tokugawa shogunate were imprisoned, exiled or even executed. His merciless policy against his opponents made him a most hated figure.
The film’s plot culminates in the assassination of Ii by seventeen imperial loyalists from Mito and one from Satsuma at the Sakurada Gate, one of the entrances to Edo Castle, the shogun’s palace (today`s Imperial Palace) in Edo on 24th March 1860. In the film, Ii has only a few appearances and in one sequence he expresses his regret about the Ansei Purge, considering it too harsh. He is therefore reluctant to take action against the men from Mito who are suspected of planning an attempt on his life purely on the basis of suspicion. He is, moreover, arrogant enough to find it absurd that someone should try to kill him in broad daylight.
The film centres on the group of assassins plotting and scheming, starting with their first failed attempt to kill Ii. During a meeting at an inn, they discuss the reasons for this failure and the possibility that they were betrayed. While they consider who the traitor could be, the camera moves from one face to another until it settles on a figure sitting in the background. Camera movement and framing emphasize that this is the presumed culprit – the film’s main protagonist Niiro Tsuruchiyo (Mifune). While the opening credits run, Tsuruchiyo is shown unabashedly plucking a hair from his nose. In these very first shots of the protagonist, his attitude already differs from that of the other conspirators. He seems uninterested in their discussion and leans against a wall as if he is asleep. His unkempt appearance also distinguishes him clearly from the other members of the group.
Later, it is said that he is a ronin from Bishuu who lives in a shack and has the reputation of being a ruffian, stealing and killing and earning his living as a bodyguard and blackmailer. Numerous scenes show his penchant for violence and alcohol. In fact, Tsuruchiyo is a drunkard and an impetuous and short-tempered man, but he is also one of the two best swordsmen in the group of conspirators. It is because of his great skill with the sword that a man with such a bad reputation could become a member of the Mito group.

Portrait of an outcast
In Samurai Assassin, Mifune Toshirō again plays an outcast and a character guided by his emotions. Because Okiku (Aratama Michiyo), the woman who runs the inn where the meeting of the Mito samurai takes place, bears a striking resemblance to the woman he was once in love with, Tsuruchiyo stubbornly refuses to leave the place for days and becomes obsessed with Okiku. Dialogues and flashbacks reveal Tsuruchiyo’s origins and his decline. Born the illegitimate son of a high-ranking samurai and his concubine, he was adopted by a Doctor of Medicine, a man closely associated with samurai. Supported financially by the merchant Kisoya (Tōno Eijirō), a friend of Tsuruchiyo’s mother, he was given an excellent education as a young man and became the best student in a famous dōjō (a place of immersive learning, especially in the martial arts) in Bishuu. His unrequited love for Princess Kiku (also played by Aratama Michiyo) has turned him into an outcast. Rejected by the young woman’s father (Shimura Takashi) because of his low status, he lost all self-control and started drinking and quarrelling. Expelled from the dōjō, he became a ronin and the depraved individual he is portrayed as in the film. Haunted by the wish to discover the truth about his biological father, he seeks social recognition. His decision to join the conspirators from Mito is not based on ideology but on the hope that he will be rewarded following Ii’s death, and he dreams of becoming a samurai with a steady income.
Mifune’s performance is flawless as ever, his acting being in perfect accord with the portrayal of Tsuruchiyo as a brute, a man whose behaviour, in particular in the film’s final sequence, is close to madness. Despite the many scenes focusing on Tsuruchiyo’s outbursts, there are some moments in which he reveals a different and gentler side of his personality. When Tsuruchiyo plays with his friend Kurihara’s (Kobayashi Keijū) young son, he looks happy and relaxed. But the mention of his dead mother puts an end to this idyllic moment. Tsuruchiyo’s smile fades and his features darken into an expression of sadness.
Mifune’s energetic performance is an important contribution to the film in the way it deals with Tsuruchiyo’s inner torment. The loss of the love of his life and the desperate search for his biological father’s identity are the reasons for his decline and his subsequent struggle for dignity. He tells his friend Kurihara – who is not only an excellent swordman but also a renowned scholar – that his only aim is to live as a human being again. Unable to understand Kurihara’s remark that he has the same dream but extends this aim to other people, he simply says: “I don’t understand. All I know is that you are a good man.” This humble remark implies that Tsuruchiyo is not an intellectual like his friend, but it reveals that he is a caring and sympathetic human being.
However, he is the one who kills Kurihara, suspected by the Mito group’s leader Hoshino (Itō Yūnosuke) of being a traitor. Despite his doubts about Kurihara’s guilt, Tsuruchiyo agrees to the deed after being threatened with expulsion from the group. The prospect of being rewarded by being chosen for the murder of Ii is stronger than his friendship with Kurihara. When the identity of the group’s real traitor is revealed a little later, Tsuruchiyo is desperate, but for the cynical Hoshino, Kurihara’s death is merely collateral damage. In this sequence, which takes place at night in a dimly lit interior, Hoshino’s haughty expression and his pale face, stand out in the darkness, giving him a diabolical aura as the film’s embodiment of evil.
Tsuruchiyo, by contrast, is a character of contradictions. Called a “monster” by some, he is mainly a tormented soul and still capable of deep feelings. His counterpart on a symbolic level can be found in the Noh play Kurozuka (Black Mound), a play that Ii attends a performance of in the film. In this play, the female character who becomes a demon due to obsession wears the hannya mask of a vengeful spirit. However, this mask has a dual significance, the person who wears it being not only a demon but, like Tsuruchiyo, also grief-stricken and tormented, thereby displaying the complexity of the human being.

A cinematic style of contrasts and fragmentation
Samurai Assassin is a film about the end of an era – that of the shogunate – and about darkness pervading a man’s soul. The many nocturnal scenes and the magnificent use of black-and-white photography with its subtle interplay of light and shadow, strongly support these central themes. This is also true for the use of meteorological phenomena such as rain and snow. Many of the scenes take place in pouring rain, underlining the misery of the film’s protagonist as he staggers drunkenly through the muddy streets. The assassination of Ii takes place during a heavy fall of snow, the white blanket on the ground being not a symbol of innocence or purity but referring to death. Also significant is the fact that Ii’s is assassinated on Peach Observance Day, or Girls’ Day/Doll’s Day (hinamatsuri), a festival with its religious origins in Shintoism on which the health and happiness of girls and young women are celebrated (4). On this day, dolls representing the emperor and empress and their entourage dressed in court costumes of the Heian period (784-1185) are put on display. In the film, Okiku has brought such dolls to Tsuruchiyo’s shack and arranged them according to the custom of hinamatsuri. The contrast between the symbols of youth, joy and innocence and Tsuruchiyo’s depravation, represented in this sequence by his dilapidated hut, revealsonce again the complexity of his personality and the tragedy of his life. Talking about his dream of social ascendency. Tsuruchiyo’s smiling face has something childlike, another reminder that this ruthless killer is nevertheless a human being. However, Okiku’s attempt to save Tsuruchiyo from himself fails. Returning to the shack the next morning, she finds on the dirty floor only the dead bodies of the ten killers that Hoshino has ordered Tsuruchiyo to liquidate and also the dolls. Later, the assassination of Ii takes place off-screen, beheaded by Tsuruchiyo, and the film shows the head of the emperor-doll earlier seen as a bridegroom falling down as if it has been cut off – an aesthetic device that also suggests the end of all happiness for Tsuruchiyo and Okiku.
As in other films directed by Okamoto, extravagant framing abounds, such as series of close-ups of faces or objects and an insistence on body parts. In the duel scene between Tsuruchiyo and Kurihara at their first meeting, the camera shot remains on the feet of the two opponents. Only at the moment when the two swords clash are Tsuruchiyo’s face and upper body framed. Very often in this scene, a face, a part of a body or an object are foregrounded. Another frequent device is the use of a frame within a frame, for example when the bamboo screens create a frame in one of the shots. Okamoto employs the technique of depth of field in a particularly ingenious manner, using bodies or parts of bodies as framing devices for a human figure in the background. Satō Masaru’s film score makes use of drums and flutes borrowed from Noh theatre to produce hammering or plaintive but always insistent sounds that are sources of strong tension.
Music, lighting, framing and sudden camera movements destroy any sense of harmony and therefore contribute to a feeling of insecurity and disorientation. The action in the film culminates in the attack on Ii and his retinue, which is filmed in virtuoso fashion and leads to scenes of pure carnage in which the conspirators kill the samurai and servants accompanying Ii and themselves die in the bloodbath. Writhing bodies, severed limbs and screams of the dying contribute gruesome effects to the sequence.

The individual in history
A picture of the assassination of Ii at the Sakurada Gate shows a samurai running away rejoicing with a severed head impaled on his sword (5). In the film, Tsuruchiyo is shown in a similar manner, running away with Ii’s severed head on his sword and shouting in triumph. In the film’s final shot, Tsuruchiyo is an ever-shrinking figure in the falling snow the individual depicted as meaningless in the expanse of the snow-covered square at the Sakurada Gate.
Tsuruchiyo may be a violent man who has been led astray by circumstances, but in the group of Mito revolutionaries, he is a prisoner in a web of violence and intrigue. After being told Tsuruchiyo’s tragic life story, Okiku falls in love with him. Both she and Kisoya try to help him, and even Ii, who is, as it turns out, Tsuruchiyo’s father, is concerned about his unknown son, having asked one of his councillors three times about his whereabouts. However, when Kisoya finally decides to tell Tsuruchiyo who his father is, it is already too late.
Once again, Mifune plays an outstanding swordsman, although not a heroic figure but the victim of manipulation whose longing for honour and social recognition turns out to be an illusion. Tsuruchiyo is unaware of his self-destructive behaviour and of the collapse of a whole system, which is the consequence of Ii’s murder. Facing death, Ii makes a prophecy about Japan’s future, saying that his death means that Japan holds no future for the samurai. And indeed, the abolition of the samurai class came only a few years after Ii’s assassination (6).
However, the conventions of the rigid class system of the Tokugawa period with the samurai as the highest caste have plunged Tsuruchiyo into misfortune. The concept of honour that is associated with the samurai is absent in Okamoto’s film. And as in Kobayashi Masaki’s Harakiri (Seppuku, 1962), Okamoto’s view on the place of the individual in a corrupt society as well as in history is utterly pessimistic, with the individual just a small cog in the huge machinery of history. The names of Kurihara and the real traitor have been erased from the clan’s records, and Tsuruchiyo’s name was erased by Hoshino the night before Ii’s assassination, leaving no trace of the assassin in the history of the Mito clan and, by extension, in Japanese history. Tsuruchiyo’s triumph is a mere illusion, imbuing the end of the film with a feeling of overwhelming sadness, just as the cold of the wintry weather is pervasive on the screen and even palpable for the viewer.

Notes
(1) Names are written according to Japanese conventions: the family name before the given name.
(2) Actor Mifune Toshirō founded his production company in 1962.
(3) Ii Naosuke (1815-1860) presided over the Council of Elders from 1858 until his death in 1860.
(4) After the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, the date of hinamatsuri was fixed on 3rd March. However, before that time, it was on the third day of the third month. The use of different calendars explains the discrepancy between the day on which

hinamatsuri is celebrated today and the day of Ii’s assassination, given as 24th March in the Gregorian calendar.
(5) I refer here to a silk painting dating from 1860 and the work of an unknown artist.
(6) The feudal system and the privileges of the samurai class were officially abolished in 1871.