Grunert-Kubi-Image

by Andrea Grunert

In Kubi (Japan, 2023), based on the actor-director’s eponymous novel, Kitano Takeshi (1) plays one of the most colourful figures in Japanese history: Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Hideyoshi (1537-1598) is regarded as the second of the three “Great Unifiers” of Japan after a long period of civil war. Not only an eminent historical figure, Hideyoshi has also inspired folk tales, kabuki plays, manga, novels, television dramas and films. According to Susan Westhafer Furukawa, there has been since his death “a confluence of writing and media about Hideyoshi” (2). As early as 1626, Oze Hoan published The Records of the Taikō (Taikōki), a 22-volume biography that became the basis for many of the stories written about Hideyoshi over the last four hundred years.
One aspect that could explain his continuing popularity is Hideyoshi’s route to power – from peasant origins to the most powerful man in Japan. In his newspaper serialization Taikō: An Epic Novel of War and Glory in Feudal Japan (Shinsho Taikōki, 1939-1942), Yoshikawa Eiji puts great emphasis on Hideyoshi’s adolescence and the early years of his career, addressing values such as loyalty and commitment. In post-war Japan, Hideyoshi as a creative spirit who overcame divisions in society became a model for the salaryman samurai, mirroring the social and cultural transitions of the time (3). In his novel Shinshi Taikōki (1968), Shiba Ryōtaro emphasizes the mercantile spirit of both Hideyoshi and Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), the first of the three “Great Unifiers”.
Works of literature are inevitably a mixture of historical accuracy and imagination, and this is obviously also true for the many films and television films made about Hideyoshi or in which he figures as a supporting character. Two taiga dorama, the annual year-long historical drama television series, have been produced about Hideyoshi (4): Taikōki (1963) and Hideyoshi (1996). Osone Tatsuo directed Taikōki – The Saga of Hideyoshi (Taikōki, 1958), an adaptation of Yoshikawa’s novel, and in 1987, Okamoto Kihachi directed a two-part television film that also had the title Taikōki. Hideyoshi is one of the two main characters in Mitani Kōki’s The Kiyosu Conference (Kiyosu kaigi, 2013; 5) and an important character in a number of other films such as Love Under the Crucifix (Ogin-sama, Tanaka Kinuyo, 1962), Warring Clans (Sengoku yarō, Okamoto Kihachi, 1963), Love and Faith (Ogin-sama, Kumai Kei, 1978), Death of a Tea Master (Sen no Rikyu: Honkakubō ibun, Kumai Kei, 1989), Rikyū (Teshigahara Hiroshi, 1989), Princess Gō (Gō-hime, Teshigahara Hiroshi, 1992), Ask This of Rikyū (Rikyū ni tazuneyo, Tanaka Misutoshi, 2013). The list of famous actors who have played Hideyoshi is equally long and includes Satō Makoto (Warring Clans), Mifune Toshirō (Love and Faith), Ogata Ken (the taiga drama Hideyoshi), Yamazaki Tsutomu (Rikyū), Ōmori Nao (Ask This of Rikyū), Ōizumi Yō (The Kiyosu Conference) and Iseya Yūsuke in the television production Onna Nobunaga (2013), directed by Takeuchi Hideki.

The narrative structure
Kubi is not a biopic. The action starts in 1579 with the end of an unsuccessful rebellion led by Akari Murashige (1535-1586), one of Oda Nobunaga’s retainers, and it ends in 1582 with Nobunaga’s death. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, at that time still called Hashiba Hideyoshi, and Akechi Mitsuhide (1528-1582) are two other retainers of Nobunaga (Kase Ryō), who is at the height of his power. The film deals briefly with Mitsuhide’s rebellion, during which Nobunaga was killed while Mitsuhide was defeated thirteen days later by Hideyoshi. One should note that all three “Great Unifiers” figure in Kubi, the third being Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), who achieved unification in the early 17th century (6).
The film starts with images of war: a great number of dead bodies floating in the water, crabs climbing out of the bloody neck of a headless body. Numerous shots and sequences reveal the horrors of war throughout the film including the bird’s eye view of a battlefield strewn with dead bodies. Despite these and other moments of bloodshed, Kitano is concerned mainly with treachery and intrigues. Nobunaga stirs up rivalry among his retainers and generals, deliberately not naming a successor and thereby implying that all of them the chance to prove themselves worthy of the task.
As in other Japanese historical films, there are many scenes showing a lord discussing with his retainers or generals. When they are not in one of these official meetings, Kubi’s main characters are usually busy scheming. Murashige (Endō Kenichi), who has found refuge with Mitsuhide (Nishijima Hidetoshi) after his failed rebellion, begs his friend to rise up against Nobunaga. Nobunaga orders Mitsuhide to kill Ieyasu (Kobayashi Kaoru). And Hideyoshi wants to remove all those involved in his intrigues. In addition to these and other well-known historical figures, the film includes subplots with both historical and fictional characters. The most important of these are created around the storyteller Sorori Shinzaemon (Kimura Yūichi; 7) and the peasant Naniwa Mosuke (Nakamura Shidō II). The former ninja Shinzaemon spies for Hideyoshi. Mosuke, a fictional character, wants to become a samurai at all costs, the recurring motive of a character in numerous jidai geki, including Kurosawa Akira’s Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai, 1954). However, unlike the courageous Kikuchyio (Toshirō Mifune), the peasant who dreams of becoming a samurai in Kurosawa’s masterpiece, Mosuke is a coward. Moreover, he kills his friend Tame and steals the head of an enemy general that Tame has cut off, and he hopes to be rewarded. And whereas Kikuchiyo is a complex character whose development from would-be-samurai to selfless fighter for justice is a main topic in Kurosawa’s film, Mosuke does not evolve but stubbornly follows his dream of becoming a samurai, obsessed with the idea of cutting off a general’s head as a trophy (8).

History and imagination: the main characters
The subplots and fictitious characters enrich the narrative of the film, which also contains many references to Kubi’s historical context. The presence of Europeans is evoked in two brief sequences in which Portuguese monks, visitors at Nobunaga’s residence, make their appearance (9). The military campaign against the Mori clan, ordered by Nobunaga and to be carried out by Hideyoshi, is also mentioned. The western-style velvet cape that Nobunaga wears on several occasions is part of an iconography associated with Nobunaga and perpetuated in a number of films, including Kurosawa Akira’s Kagemusha (1980).
It is usually said that Nobunaga committed seppuku at the Honnō-ji temple in Kyoto when Mitsuhide attacked him. In Kitano’s version however, the warlord dies a less honourable death. Convinced that his valet and bodyguard Yasuke (Soejima Jun) will disembowel himself, he offers to assist by beheading him. However, the African-born Yasuke (10) is not willing to follow the orders of his master nor to respect the rites of seppuku, and instead, he beheads Nobunaga with one swift movement of his sword, shouting angrily: “You yellow piece of shit.”
One could call Kitano’s interpretation and portrayal of Hideyoshi unconventional but undoubtedly original, starting with the fact that he plays Hideyoshi himself. Hideyoshi is generally described as a small man – perhaps suffering from rickets – with a wrinkled face who became bald at an early age. His nickname “Monkey” – “Saru” in Japanese – refers to his size and physiognomy and stature. In recent years, Ōmori Nao and Ōizumi Yō, who played the character in Ask This of Rikyu and The Kiyosu Conference respectively, are actors of slender build and thus similar to the usual image of Hideyoshi, their vivid acting style contributing to this perception. This is also the case for the tall and handsome Iseya Yūsuke, who played Hideyoshi in the miniseries Onna Nobunaga, the way he managed to wrinkle his face evoking the image of Hideyoshi, the monkey.
Kitano is much older than these actors, all of whom were born in the 1970s whereas Kitano was born in 1947. Moreover, he plays Hideyoshi as a rather clumsy person very much lacking vigour. By interpreting the role himself, Kitano underlines his refusal to follow conventional visions of Hideyoshi, and the differences are revealed not only physically but also by the absence of a variety of characteristics commonly associated with Japan’s second unifier, some of these characteristics having become established during Hideyoshi’s lifetime. As Susan Westhafer Furukawa puts it: “The first person to fictionalize Hideyoshi was Hideyoshi himself.” (11). Written nearly 350 years later, Yoshikawa’s novel incorporates characteristics such as loyalty and hard work, attributes that can serve as ideal values for readers and film viewers alike. In Osone’s Taikōki – The Saga of Hideyoshi, a digest version of the novel, Hideyoshi (Takada Kokichi) is depicted as an ambitious young man, a true self-made man and charismatic personality who prefers the society of commoners to those of samurai (12). This highly romanticized portrayal of Hideyoshi is heightened by the emphasis the film puts on filial duty. Hideyoshi’s ambition to become a samurai is paralleled by his strong desire to repay the debts he owes his mother (and elder sister), who made many sacrifices to help him.
Hideyoshi’s rise from humble origins to power became an inspiring tale for post-war Japan, as Shiba’s novel Shinshi Taikōki demonstrates. However, far from being idealized, Hideyoshi became an ambiguous figure as a result of critical approaches, as in Tsutsui Yasutaka’s satirical novella Yamazaki (13), and film directors also created critical interpretations of Hideyoshi’s heroic status. In Love under the Crucifix, Love and Faith, Death of a Tea Master, Rikyū, Ask This of Rikyū and Onna Nobunaga, Hideyoshi is depicted as selfish and materialistic, ambitious and despotic.
According to a Japanese saying, when asked what to do if a cuckoo does not want to sing, Nobunaga would have said: “Kill it!”, Hideoyshi: “Make it want to sing” and Ieyasu: “Wait for it to sing.” This saying reveals the different characteristics of the three men, referring in Hideyoshi’s case to his cleverness and charisma. Hideyoshi’s eloquence and political acumen are reflected in Mitani’s The Kiyosu Conference, which also emphasizes his intelligence and manipulative power. However, Kitano retains only the image of the schemer. He plays Hideyoshi as a brutish person, a Hideyoshi who does not coax the cuckoo to sing. He is a rather dull character, delegating duties to his more eloquent and capable half-brother Hidenaga, played by Ōmori Nao, who gives a far more vivid interpretation of Hideyoshi in Ask This of Rikyu. In one of Kubi’s very funny scenes, it is revealed that Hideyoshi is illiterate and depends largely on his brother’s abilities (14). However, he is shrewd and knows how to use and misuse other people to suit his own needs.
As in most of the films referred to in this article but with the exception of Taikōki – The Saga of Hideyoshi, Hideyoshi is depicted as a man of violence who has nothing of the leadership qualities suggested in Osone’s film from 1958 (15). In Kubi, a horrified Hidenaga declares : “You toy with the lives of people.” One difference from the cruel Hideyoshi in Onna Nobunaga is that Kitano’s Hideyoshi does not do the killing himself but delegates his murderous deeds to his subordinates and allies, a behaviour that contributes to the character’s ambiguity. The traditional image of Hideyoshi as a smooth talker, is perverted, and when Kitano’s Hideyoshi talks, it is often to give an order to kill.
Kubi means “neck”, and the bloody neck of the headless body shown in the opening sequence is an early indication of the violence in the period depicted by Kitano. The neck as the target of samurai swords is repeatedly evoked throughout the film. However, the word is not only used in the context of violence. The famous tea master Sen no Rikyū (Kishibe Ittokū) confides to Mitsuhide: “I wash my neck every morning. I will keep my kimono clean until the country is united.” A shrewd man, his secretive behaviour ensures that he literally keeps his head.
Compared to Kitano’s Hideyoshi, Nobunaga looks rather young (16) and is energetic if not hyperactive. Kase Ryō gives a perfect representation of the despotic and cruel leader suggested in the saying about the cuckoo. In Kubi, he is a true psychopath and not at all like the visionary Nobunaga of the recent television production Okehazama – Rise of Oda Nobunaga (Okehazama – Hao no tanjō, Kawake Shūnsaku, 2021). Kitano’s Nobunaga as played by Kase is not content simply to order killings as Hideyoshi does, and he also takes pleasure in humiliating – verbally and physically – and brutalizing his subjects. For example, he has Murashige bite off a ball of rice that he has put on the tip of his sword, turning the weapon around in his mouth until blood gushes out. In another scene, he brutally kicks and punches Mitsuhide.
Mitsuhide is referred to as “brooding and boring”, and it is with a constant expression of pain that Nishijima Hidetoshi plays the role of the man who in 1582 rebelled against his lord. He is portrayed as a loyal retainer who hesitates when urged by his lover Murashige to rise up against Nobunaga, and instead, he is pedantic in the way he follows the rules of his social class. In one scene, the two samurai are shown naked in bed. Murashige, the hunted rebel, touches Mitsuhide’s cheeks tenderly, but Mitsuhide thrusts his hand away, saying: “We are enemies. Behave accordingly.” However, Mitsuhide’s loyalty to his lord begins to waver when he learns that Nobunaga plans to have him killed. Ambition leads him to sacrifice Murashige (“The weight of ruling the land weighs heavier than the bond between two samurai.”), whom Mitsuhide has killed by his servants (17).

Power and performance
Homosexuality is one of the major topics in Kubi and is closely linked to questions of power and violence. Mitsuhide and Murashige are secret lovers while Nobunaga openly has sex with his young retainer Mori Ranmaru (Kanichiro; 18), being watched by Mitsuhide. The idea for a homosexual relationship between the two men stems from representations of Nobunaga and Ranmaru known from nanshoku literature (19) of the Edo period (1603-1868). Homosexual relations rarely figure in jidai geki, one exception being Oshima Nagisa’s Taboo (Gohatto, 1999), starring Kitano Takeshi. Kubi depicts an all-male universe in which the desire for power is stronger than sexual lust or sentimental feelings. Nobunaga promises Mitsuhide that he can become his successor if he declares his love for him. However, these are apparently mere words.
Kase Ryō’s Nobunaga is a highly eccentric figure and the opposite of both the crude Hideyoshi and the hesitant Mitsuhide with the latter’s constant expression of displeasure.
Nobunaga lives in accordance with the motto: “From the moment you’re born, life is one big joke.” Wearing a European velvet cape and colourful kimonos, he is reminiscent of an entertainer. References to theatre abound in Kubi. The storyteller Shinzaemon and a group of performers accompanying the troops of soldiers are a further link to the world of theatrical entertainment. In one sequence, a Noh play is performed. Such elements are often used in jidai geki, and here they provide an intertextual link to Kitano’s roots in the theatre as well as suggesting that many politicians are not unlike performers dealing with illusions.
In Kubi, humour contributes considerably to this element of performance and entertainment. Humour is both verbal and physical, supported by the comic talent of Kitano, Ōmori, Nakamura Shidō II and Asano Tadanobu, who plays Kurobe Kanbei (1546-1604), one of Hideyoshi’s advisors and known historically as his chief strategist. The witty repartee between Hideyoshi, Hidenaga and Kanbei presents them as a trio of comedians. In one scene, Hidenaga, in conversation with the samurai Koroku and Nakagawa, pretends to be deeply shaken by Nobunaga’s death. Hideyoshi and Shinzaemon watch the scene from behind a wooden wall and laugh their heads off at Hidenaga’s convincing performance, with Ōmori’s rather exaggerated acting signalling to the viewer that he is only pretending and that the tears he is shedding are crocodile tears. The presence of the two characters hiding from Koroku and Nakagawa even heightens the theatrical dimension of the scene. At a different point in the film, Hideyoshi asks Koroku: “Can you and Nakagawa die together?” He immediately corrects this slip of the tongue: “I mean lead the attack together?” Behind the joke lurks deadly seriousness that reveals Hideyoshi’s penchant for violence. This is also the case in the scene in which Shinzaemon has cheated at gambling. Hideyoshi intervenes, ordering: “Stick your neck out.” Instead of decapitating the former ninja, Hideyoshi starts laughing: “Just kidding.” A little later he sends Shinzaemon to the village of the Kōga ninja, saying nonchalantly to his brother: “He will die anyway.”
The role of the peasant Mosuke also has comical elements that contribute to the film’s burlesque aspect. A horo (20) attached to his back, he staggers rather than walking. However, he does not discard the horo, in the belief that wearing it makes him a samurai. Samurai codes are also mocked in the scene showing the seppuku of Lord Muneharu, watched by Hideyoshi, Hidenaga and Kanbei. Hideyoshi, growing impatient, shouts: “Hurry up and die!” while Kanbei reminds him: “No, no, my lord. The last rites of a samurai …” Hideyoshi’s retort that he is a peasant shows his lack of respect for samurai conventions as well as his selfishness and disregard of others. After Mitsuhide’s revolt has been put down, the heads of the dead are on display. Hideyoshi recognizes Mosuke’s head but not Mitsuhide’s. Enraged, he kicks the severed head, making it fall to the ground and revealing once again his disrespect for the dead and the codes and customs of the warrior class. The display of the heads is also a reminder that death is the great leveller and makes no distinction between samurai and peasants. In Kubi. there is nothing honourable about death. Murashige, a prisoner in a palanquin that is only a wooden box, is taken away by Mitsuhide’s servants, who push it into a ravine, the samurai being discarded like some object that is no longer needed.

Conclusion
Beginning in the late 1920s, the traditional image of samurai has been tarnished in a great number of jidai geki and the codes of behaviour of the warrior class – closely linked to matters of honour and loyalty – have been called into question. Humour is used as a means to deconstruct the ideal of the warrior class in Yamanaka Sadao’s The Million Ryō Pot (Tange Sazen yowa: hyakuman ryō no tsubo, 1935). Unlike Mitani in The Kiyosu Conference, another historical comedy revealing political intrigues and treachery, Kitano mixes humour with violence and even gore elements. Keeping a fine balance between violence and humour, Kubi, both blood-drenched and funny, is a highly entertaining retelling of history. Challenging the image of Hideyoshi by means of humour, Kitano nevertheless depicts him as sympathetic. However, his Hideyoshi also has a cunning and cruel side, and behind the image of the unsophisticated peasant, Kitano unmasks the tyrant and warns against autocratic behaviour, something that remains a threat in present-day societies.

Notes
(1) Names are written according to Japanese conventions: the family name before the given name.
(2) Susan Westhafer Furukawa, The Afterlife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi: Historical Fiction and Popular Culture in Japan, Cambridge, Mass./London: Harvard University Asia Centre, 2022, p. 1.
(3) See Westhafer Furukawa, op. cit., chapter 3: “The Salaryman Samurai: Hideyoshi as Business Model”, p. 84-121.
(4) Taiga dorama (literally “Big River dramas”) have been produced since 1963 by Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai, which can be translated as Japan Broadcasting Corporation. A taiga drama on Toyotomi Hidenaga, Hideyoshi’s half-brother, as central character is planned for 2026.
(5) See my article on The Kiyosu conference as a battlefield.
(6) Tokugawa Ieyasu achieved the unification of Japan after defeating the Toyotomi and their allies at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. Ieyasu became shōgun in 1603, and the Tokugawa family ruled over Japan from 1603 until 1868.
(7) Sorori Shinzaemon is said to be the founder of rakugo storytelling. However, it is not clear whether he really lived or is a figure from the realm of legends.
(8) There are many similarities between Mosuke and Tōbei (Ozawa Eitarō) in Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu (Ugetsu monogatari, 1953), which is set in the same period as Kubi. Tōbei is a peasant whose dream of becoming a samurai becomes an obsession. He also kills to gain possession of the head of an important warrior. Unlike Mosuke, Tōbei is rewarded for his cleverness and made a samurai. In the end, however, he renounces being a samurai and returns to his village. He does this out of love for his wife, while Mosuke is relieved that his wife and children have been killed. In this manner, they do not impede his aspirations.
(9) The first Portuguese ships arrived in Japan in 1543.
(10) Yasuke, presumably born around 1555, arrived in Japan with the Portuguese accompanying the Jesuit Alessandro Valignano on his first visit to Japan in 1579. In Japan, he became the valet and bodyguard of Nobunaga. According to historical sources, he survived the Honnō-ji incident. However, his subsequent life and the date of his death remain unknown.
(11) Susan Westhafer Furukawa, op. cit., p. 35.
(12) Note that Yoshikawa’s novel covers Hideyoshi’s life only from the age of 6 to the age of 49. Kitano’s film ends even before in the early 1560s.
(13) See Susan Westhafer Furukawa (op. cit.) for further details about the perception of Hideyoshi in Japanese culture since the 1950s. Westhafer Furukawa puts great emphasis on literature and also on matters such as tourist sites related to Hideyoshi. Film is a peripheral topic in her book and she deals with it only superficially.
(14) Hidenaga (1540-1591), always loyal to his half-brother, is regarded by some historians as his brain and right-hand man.
(15) Especially at the end of his reign, Hideyoshi acted with extreme brutality, for example the seppuku to which the famous tea master Sen no Rikyū was condemned, the execution of the whole family of Hideyoshi’s nephew Hidetsugu and the savage executions of Christians. Historians can only speculate about the reasons for these acts. See Mary Elizabeth Berry, Hideyoshi, Cambridge, Mass./London, The Council on East Asia Studies & Harvard University Press, 1982, p. 222-228.
(16) Kase, born in 1974, is 27 years Kitano’s junior.
(17) This is fictional, and in reality Murashige died in 1586, four years after Nobunaga and Mitsuhide.
(18) Mori Ranmaru was presumably born in 1565.
(19) Nanshoku, literally “male colours”, is a form of literature dealing with male-to-male sexuality in pre-modern Japan.
(20) A horo is a cloak or garment put over a framework of wicker, bamboo or whalebone which was attached to the back of the armour of a samurai and enhanced the appearance of the mounted warrior or highlighted his rank. It also had a protective function against arrows. In Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu, Tōbei thinks that wearing a suit of armour and owning a spear are enough to be considered a samurai.

NC24_cinema_Penalty Loop
(Copyright: „Penalty Loop“ Film Partners)

by Andrea Grunert

The Town of Headcounts (Ninzū no machi, Japan, 2020), Araki Shinji’s (1) directorial debut is a sombre portrait of Japan at an unspecified time in the future. The film is the dystopian tale of a society that manipulates its citizens and tries to eliminate the undesirable such as the poor and the criminals. If space is an important factor in this first film, the focus in Penalty Loop, Araki’s second film, is on time (2). Yui (Yamashita Riō), the girlfriend of the film’s main protagonist Jun (Wakaba Ryūya), has been murdered. The young man is devastated and takes the law into his own hands, killing her murderer, Mizoguchi (Iseya Yūsuke), who works as a maintenance man at the same factory as Jun. When Jun wakes up, the day after having had his revenge, it is still June 6th – the same as the day before – and his victim is still alive. Jun is caught in a spiralling loop of violence during which he kills Mizoguchi again and again.
Araki varies not only the situations in which the killing takes place, but he also shifts from reality to virtual reality. What makes his film original and particularly appealing is its visual design. Jun and Mizoguchi work at a hydroponic plant factory, a highly automatized place and almost devoid of human presence. Jun, clothed from head to toe in a protective suit, is almost unrecognizable as a human figure. The huge room in which vegetables are grown and where his task is to set in motion a conveyor belt with heads of lettuce looks sterile. Just as in his previous film with its futuristic-looking setting, Araki does not need special effects to create an eerie feeling of unfamiliarity. In addition, the motif of the time loop is a perfect pattern to display a great variety of genre conventions borrowed from fantasy, horror, and crime films.
The hydroponic factory is certainly a significant feature of Araki’s film, but the plot focuses on the two main characters, Jun and his antagonist Mizoguchi, depicting not only the conflict between the two men – reminiscent of two duellists – but also the development of the relationship between them and their personalities. Jun commits his first murder in a frenzy. He first spikes Mizoguchi’s coffee, leaving him writhing with severe stomach cramp. When Jun later kills him, Mizoguchi is no longer able to defend himself and Jun stabs his victim brutally several times, venting his fury at the death of his girlfriend.
When Jun kills Mizoguchi the second time, Mizoguchi sees his assailant’s face, and from then on starts adopting strategies to avoid being killed. The following day, he does not drink the poisoned coffee but offers it to a female employee at the factory and watches almost with glee as the woman writhes in pain. To begin with, there is no dialogue between Jun and his opponent, but language soon becomes an indication of rapprochement as human beings. Jun’s desire for revenge moderates and Mizoguchi, realizing that he is going to die, reacts with sadness.
Despite its emphasis on death and violence, Penalty Loop is not lacking in humour, for example when Jun pushes a trolley on which is Mizoguchi’s dead body, wrapped in a plastic bag and kept in an upright position through the aisles of the factory, a group of employees watching in amazement. In another scene, Jun complains to his victim: “I am going to dump your body. You are so heavy”, to which Mizoguchi replies laconically “I am sorry.” However Mizoguchi also complains about being in constant pain as it hurts being so frequently stabbed or shot.
Araki skilfully mixes tragedy and humour, just as he convincingly combines the social and moral levels. The Town of Headcounts is full of references to present-day Japanese society, and in Penalty Loop too the plot is firmly anchored in reality. The film also has a strong psychological dimension. At the beginning it is reported that the police have arrested Yui’s murderer. That does not seem to be enough for Jun and he wants to see the perpetrator dead. The death penalty is still carried out in Japan but mainly for what are considered aggravated murders. However, for Jun, the law does not seem to be enough. He is depicted as someone who gives unbridled rein to his anger and helplessness over Yui’s death. These are certainly feelings that many viewers could share from their own experience – although probably from other less dramatic scenarios. The death penalty is hinted at in the scene in which Jun and Mizoguchi go bowling. In this scene two kinds of opponents are referred to, namely “executioners” and “death row inmates”. However, it is not the death penalty that is the focus of Araki’s film but how to come to terms with the violent death of a loved one and how to deal with one’s grief.
Jun is depicted as an attentive and caring person, revealed in one early sequence in which he sets a ladybird free. But the brutal death of his girlfriend changes him and the gentle Jun becomes an unscrupulous avenger who plans Mizoguchi’s death carefully and does not kill in the heat of the moment. The film only hints at how such a friendly and ordinary man can become a killer. However, the development of Jun’s personality does not end there, and he becomes himself a prisoner of the spiralling loop of violence that he has triggered. The constant killing sobers him up, and a new process of realization sets in, Jun realizing more and more clearly that revenge will change nothing. Nevertheless, he cannot stop killing.
This awakening of a conscience also means that he can for the first time really come to terms with the past, revealed in flashbacks showing him with his girlfriend. In this way, Araki indicates just how much grief is a slow process. Jun’s girlfriend is presented as a mysterious young woman whom he first met when she was burning documents on a beach. Even when Mizoguchi – who reveals that he is a contract killer – talks to Jun about the murder, much about Yui remains in the dark. For Jun, the brutal loss of his girlfriend also means that he does not get any answers – neither about Yui’s behaviour nor about her true feelings. These many unanswered questions torment him as they do many other bereaved.
The character of Mizoguchi does not perhaps have much depth, but is far more than a mere cliché. Araki, who is also the screenwriter of his film, could easily have portrayed Mizoguchi as an embodiment of evil. Instead, he emerges as a broken figure, which is emphasized by Iseya Yūsuke’s performance, as nuanced and imaginative as ever (3). His acting gives the character profile. Intrigued by Jun who is drawing a picture of a mighty tree close to the factory, he finally tries to draw the tree himself. The camera remains on Mizoguchi for a long time while he concentrates deeply on what is for him an unusual task but enjoys this peaceful moment, a smile lighting up his face. The melancholy but also the joy that he experiences suggest that he too is changing. Artistic creativity is set in contrast to violence and death. By portraying Mizoguchi as a human being rather than a cliché, Araki enriches the film’s moral dimension and critically questions revenge.
In addition to ethical reflections, the questioning of the revenge motif and implicitly of the death penalty, i.e. violence sanctioned by the state, Penalty Loop has a strong spiritual dimension, an aspect mentioned by Araki Shinji in the interview I conducted with him (4). Nature plays a major role in the film’s technological world, which is both realistic and at the same time detached from reality. The factory looks futuristic but is real – Penalty Loop was shot in a hydroponic plant in Fukushima Prefecture. In the factory, nature is domesticized and completely under human control. It is presented as a modern landscape and a human interpretation of nature. But there are also plants in Jun’s apartment and frequent shots of the huge tree that the two protagonists draw. While Mizoguchi is drawing his picture, the wind blows through the tree’s foliage, evoking the idea of a ghostly presence. The same suggestion of a spiritual presence is created by the image of an isolated spot in a bamboo grove, recalling similar images from numerous jidai geki. Nature is central to Shintoism, which holds that restless spirits who have been torn from life unnaturally inhabit trees and howl their suffering to the winds (5). Making use of these conventions, Araki succeeds very convincingly in externalizing inner feelings via pure visual imagination.
Flower symbolism is repeatedly evoked by the radio commentator Jun listens to every morning. According to the voice on the radio, the iris, the flower of the day – i.e. June 6th – is a symbol of hope. However, the yellow iris has a negative connotation, being a symbol of revenge, and thus this symbol combines both the film’s revenge motif and its yearning for hope.
There is no image of a yellow iris in the film, but Jun, the avenger, drives a yellow car. Colours are very important in The Town of Headcounts, and in Penalty Loop too, Araki giving a great deal of emphasis to colours. The film’s main colour is green – the rich green of the salads and vegetables in the hydroponic factory and that of the leaves on the huge tree on the factory’s premises, the green of the bamboo grove and of the plants in Jun’s apartment. This lively colour establishes a significant contrast to the theme of murder and violence. There is also the blue of the water in the sequence in which Jun and Mizoguchi are rowing on a lake. Filmed from bird’s eye view, the bluish-turquoise surface of the water creates an almost idyllic image. This brief moment contrasts with the nocturnal images in which water is linked with death – Yui is murdered near a lake; Jun apparently dumps Mizoguchi’s dead body in the same lake. Even the scene with the two men in the boat ends with a death when Jun shoots Mizoguchi dead. Araki’s use of water as a motif in the film is a reminder that this element is in many cultures strongly associated with both life and death and expresses the very idea of rebirth.
Araki privileges image, music and sound over dialogue. Emphasis is put on the actors and how they communicate using their eyes and their facial and body expressions. Very often, Araki is content to offer allusions. In Penalty Loop, the viewer does not know any more than the characters do, but is it necessary always to explain everything? Making clever use of the time loop narrative, Araki has created a film full of unexpected turns. Despite its violent theme, Penalty Loop is highly entertaining, and the spellbinding combination of drama and comedy leaves enough space for deeper reflection on death, loss and grief. Moreover, Araki succeeds marvellously in combining a great variety of narrative and visual elements without destroying the film’s internal coherence.
Notes
(1) Names are written according to Japanese conventions: the family name before the given name.
(2) It should be noted that the time loop motif figures in two other recent Japanese films: Takebayashi Ryō’s Mondays: See You “This” Week! (Mondays: Kono tainurūpu, jōshi ni kidzuka senai to owaranai, 2022) and Yamaguchi Junta’s River: The Timeloop Hotel (Riba; nagarenaide yo, 2023). The first of these films deals with Japanese white-collar workers, a young salaryman being caught in a time loop. In the second, the characters are caught in a two-minute time loop at an inn in the countryside. Penalty Loop is however very different from these two films, the time-loop factor being the only common element.
(3) See Araki Shinji on working with the actors in the interview that I conducted with him during the Nippon Connection Film Festival in Frankfurt on May 30th, 2024.

(4) ibid.

(5) Links between nature and the spiritual world are also features of Buddhism and other religions.

The Pass-Image-01

by Andrea Grunert

Koizumi Takashi’s (1) jidai geki (period film) The Pass: Last Days of the Samurai (Tōge: Saigō no samurai) is the adaptation of the novel Tōge written by Shiba Ryōtarō and published in 1968. Koizumi, a longtime assistant of Kurosawa Akira, directed After the Rain (Ame ageru, 1999), based on a screenplay written by Kurosawa who died in 1998. Recently, Koizumi has directed two other jidai geki: A Samurai Chronicle (Higurashi no ki, 2014) and Samurai Promise (Chiri tsubaki, 2018). Yakusho Kōji, who plays the leading role of Kawai Tsugunosuke in The Pass, also starred in A Samurai Chronicle. Several actors who have worked with Kurosawa appear in supporting roles: Nakadai Tatsuya (2), Kagawa Kyōko and Igawa Hisashi.
The action starts in November 1867 with the declaration of shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu (Higashide Masahiro) to return governmental power to the Emperor (3). However, imperial loyalists from Satsuma, Chōchū and other domains opposed the idea of Yoshinobu’s leading role in a government council of the territorial lords. On 27 January 1868, Yoshinobu and his allies from various domains clashed with pro-imperialist forces at the Battle of Toba-Fushimi marking the beginning of the Boshin War (4). The protagonist of The Pass, Kawai Tsugunosuke (1827-1868) serves as the chamberlain of Makino Tadayuki (Nakadai), the lord of the Nagaoka domain (5). As a Tokugawa loyalist, Tadayuki continues to support Yoshinobu while he also expresses his respect to the emperor. His chamberlain follows a policy of “armed neutrality” and dreams of independence for his domain.
Numerous films and television series depict the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate, known as Bakumatsu, and the early Meiji period (1868-1912). The leading pro-imperialists of Chōshū, Satsuma and Tosa or the shinsengumi, an elite group of swordmen created by the shogunate, continue to inspire Japanese cinema (6). The Bakumatsu period and the first years of the Meiji era were times of great turmoil, making them particularly suitable for literary and cinematic productions seeking action, emotions, and reflections on political and cultural change.
In 1853, the arrival of American ships put an end to Japan’s isolationist policy (7). The Pass does not deal with the arrival of foreigners from America and Europe on the Japanese coast from 1853 onwards, but with internal struggles, specifically the threat posed by the army of Chōshū and Satsuma and their allies to Nagaoka. Kawai’s attempt to prevent war is unsuccessful due to his failure to consider the arrogance of the samurai from Chōshū and Satsuma, who refuse all negotiations (8).
The Pass contains numerous dialogue scenes, including political negotiations, idea exchange, strategy planning and private conversations. The placid rhythm is only interrupted by battle scenes in the final part. The film’s focus is on Kawai’s efforts to maintain peace while preparing his clan for an eventual war. In his first appearance, Kawai observes a shooting training. Later, he expresses his satisfaction with the Gatling gun (9) that he obtained for his clan and is interested in purchasing two or three more of these machine guns to compensate Nagaoka’s shortage of manpower.
Kawai is portrayed as a mild-mannered but strong-minded man who seeks to avoid conflict. In one scene, he confronts a group of young samurai from his clan who ambush him in a dark street. Although there is a brief fight in which Kawai demonstrates his physical strength, the conflict is primarily resolved through dialogue. However, the contradiction within the policy of “armed neutrality” is exposed in a conversation between Kawai and a maid who questions him: “You claim that conflict is wrong, yet you are constantly preparing for it.” The young woman’s remark brings to mind the dilemma often portrayed in jidai geki, where samurai live and die by the sword, yet many of them try – often in vain – not to kill.
The Pass briefly depicts the horror of war, exemplified by a scene in which Kawai encounters an elderly peasant holding his whimpering grandchild, still an infant, in front of his burning home. Yakusho’s exceptional acting conveys Kawai’s helplessness in the face of this atrocity. Kawai seamlessly fits into the lineage of samurai and ronin (masterless samurai) of Koizumi’s jidai geki which inherit Kurosawa Akira’s humanism. Kawai’s primary concern is for the people of his clan and their future. He acknowledges that the future entails change which in turn signifies the end of his own social class. In Samurai Promisse, the protagonist states that a samurai’s duty is to think of the people. Similarly, Kawai expresses a political idea: “The people are the nation. Dignitaries serve the people.”
Kawai is portrayed as a skilled strategist and honourable samurai, devoted to his lord and clan, and kind to the people. Despite this idealisation, he is depicted as a human being with many dimensions. The focus on his personal life, which reveals Kawai as a loving husband and highlights the strong bond between him and his wife Osuga (Matsu Takako), makes the character more relatable for modern audiences. The scenes showing the protagonist at home with his wife or enjoying life in a geisha house, to which he invites Osuga to accompany him, contribute to this rich human portrayal that avoids mere stereotyping.
The film showcases moments of great beauty through carefully composed and lit shots. The attention to detail is evident, particularly in the long shots where human presence is reduced to figurines. The colour palette predominantly features blues, greys, browns, pale greens and gold. The careful composition of each shot aligns with the slow rhythm of the narration and Japanese aesthetics, which also inspires the architecture.
The Pass, as well as Koizumi’s previous jidai geki including After the Rain, emphasises a classic narration and style. This is in contrast to more daring approaches to the genre, as demonstrated in Miike Takashi’s 13 Assassins (Jūsannin no shikaku, 2010) or Shimamura Yūji’s Crazy Samurai Musashi (Kyō samurai Musashi, 2020). The Pass does not criticise samurai ethics. Its protagonist is an example of an honourable loser who fought against an army of 50,000 with only 690 men. However, the film’s portrayal of the ideal samurai based on humanity challenges interpretations which value obedience and masculine strength. Moreover, Kawai’s vision is not restricted by the values of his own social class. He encourages a young man to pursue his desire to become a painter and emphasizes the importance of education in planning the future of his clan.
The Pass teaches us lessons about war and peace and about the importance of dialogue. It also highlights the conflict between the ideal of peace and the reality that war is always a possibility. It is precisely this dilemma that not only the Japanese have to face again today.

Notes

(1) The names are written in accordance with Japanese conventions, with the family name preceding the given name.
(2) Yakusho attended Mumei juku, an actor’s school founded by Nakadai and his late wife Miyazaki Yasuko (1931-1996).
(3) Following two and a half centuries of rule by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, which gave the period from 1603 to 1868 its name – Tokugawa period (Tokugawa jidai) –, imperial rule was reinstated.
(4) The Boshin War took place from 1868 to 1869 and concluded with the defeat of the pro-Tokugawa forces.
(5) Nagaoka was a small domain located in Echigo province.
(6) See, for example, Ōtomo Keishi’s five Rurouni Kenshin-films (2012, 2014, 2021) and Harada Masato’s Baragaki: Unbroken Samurai (Moeyo Ken, 2021).
(7) During the first half of the 17th century, the Tokugawa regime implemented a policy of isolation, with strongly restricted relations and trade between Japan and foreign countries.
(8) The Nagaoka territory was one of the main battlefields in the Boshin War.
(9) The Gatling gun, an early machine gun with multiple barrels that fired rapidly, was invented in 1861 by the American Richard Jordan Gatling.