Image-Yojimbo

by Andrea Grunert

60 years ago – on 25 April 1961 – Kurosawa Akira’s Yōjinbō (Yojimbo) was released in Japan. Since then, much has been written about this highly influential film that inspired many Japanese and international productions, of which Sergio Leone’s Per un Pugno di dollari (A Fistful of Dollars, Italy/Germany/Spain, 1964) is the best known. The Japanese film’s ambiguous central figure – the yōjinbō or bodyguard, played by Mifune Toshirō (1) –, its graphic violence (2) and its various mise en scène devices (3) have left their indelible mark on filmmaking both in Japan and in the West.

Subverting genre conventions
Leone turned Kurosawa’s film into a Western (made in Europe), and Yōjinbō itself contains elements reminiscent of this most American genre, including shots of the protagonist emerging on the dusty main street of a small town where the final showdown will later take place. There are also numerous details that evoke Westerns as well as elements of the hard-boiled genre in film and literature. However, the setting and many other aspects are distinctively Japanese. The many references to a great variety of narrative and visual elements in Japanese and other cultures (4) reflect the history of Japanese cinema (and of the country as a whole), contributing further to the originality of Kurosawa’s film.
With its many fight scenes, Yōjinbō could be called a chanbara, a swordfighting film, but its complexity makes the label jidaigeki (period film) more appropriate. The action is set in the early nineteenth century in the last decades of the Tokugawa era, which ended in 1868 after more than 250 years with the samurai no longer the official rulers of the country. As in Shichinin no samurai (Seven Samurai, 1954), Kumonosu-jō (Throne of Blood, 1957) and Kakushi toride no san akunin (The Hidden Fortress, 1958), Kurosawa offers a critical view of the samurai class and its codes of behaviour. However, in contrast to these earlier films, he openly challenges genre conventions. The yōjinbō defeats his opponents using their methods, and Kurosawa reacts to the jidaigeki and chanbara genres from within by subverting their conventions.
Distancing himself from the mass productions by the successful Toei studio – the champion of chanbara production with its stylized fight scenes and stereotypical plots and characters – Kurosawa pushes graphic violence to new extremes. The shot of a severed arm falling to the ground or blood gushing from the neck of a victim create gore effects unknown at that time in mainstream period films. As Yoshimoto Mitsuhiro writes, “there was no direct representation of blood in conventional chambara. Yojimbo destroys this convention once and for all!“ (5). In Kurosawa’s ground-breaking film, the realistic approach to violence is also explored in the sound effects – one particular innovation being the sound of human flesh being slashed.
Kurosawa’s shift from formulaic expression had already inspired Araki Mataemon: kettō kagiya no tsuji (Vendetta of Samurai, 1952, Mori Kazuo), for which he wrote the script and in which Mifune was cast in the leading role as the famous swordfighter Araki Mataemon. The film starts with a ballet-like swordfighting scene reminiscent of early silent films and their origins in Kabuki theatre. A voice-over informs the viewer that this form of representation belongs to the past, new films being more realistic. Both Mori’s film and Yōjinbō present realistic fight scenes and have complex main characters. However, the critical reworking of the samurai ideal in Araki Mataemon is mainly expressed through narration whereas in Yōjinbō aesthetic aspects are important in the critical discourse on the values attributed to the samurai and on genre conventions. Moreover, Kurosawa’s film eschews the didactic intention that is revealed in the first sequences of Araki Mataemon. Yōjinbō’s various cultural references and its rich intertextual dimension that is an integral part of Kurosawa’s filmmaking and Mifune’s media image enhance the critical exploration of the film’s genre renewal. It is this multi-layered approach that makes Yōjinbō a masterpiece of modern cinema.

Hero and mise en scène
The hero of Yōjinbō has been described as the “the narrative attractor” (6), and in the film, he openly talks strategy with the innkeeper Gonji (Tōno Eijirō), who identifies his role as manipulator and initiator of violence when, referring to a series of killings, he asks: “Did you write this play?” This hero, a ronin (a masterless samurai) is reminiscent of the nihilist samurai and ronin figures in the films of the late 1920s and 1930s (7) but is adapted to fit the 1960s, making him darker and also funnier. Whereas the traditional image of the ideal samurai celebrated the value of loyalty, Kurosawa’s hero sells his services to two masters and his sole aim seems to be to make money – a further aspect of the film that is in strong contrast to the ethos of the warrior class. He is part of a society still ruled by the samurai but in the nineteenth century largely dominated by the merchants, the lowest of the four classes (8) into which Japanese society was divided in the Tokugawa period. In this world, notions of honour and loyalty are meaningless and so is the conflict between giri (loyalty) and ninjō (personal feelings) that is at the core of many period films. When asked his name, the ronin, looking at a mulberry field, says that it is Kuwabatake (mulberry field) and that his first name is Sanjurō (literally 30th man, which is his age). Instead of exploring the conventional relationship between the samurai, who often had a short life, and the cherry blossom – the delicate flower which only blooms for a short time – Kurosawa offers the mulberry as an ironical alternative, reinforcing his criticism of the warrior ideal perpetuated in many of the Toei productions.
This materialist hero who kills in cold-blood is a pivotal element in Kurosawa’s bushidō criticism and also an important figure in the intertextual discourse as a means to subvert genre conventions. The disparity between this unkempt ronin and figures such as the famous swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, whom Mifune played in Inagaki Hiroshi’s Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956), or the loyal general Makabe Rokurota in Kurosawa’s Kakushi toride no san akunin adds a touch of irony to the figure of this highly ambiguous ronin who then became the model for more modern cinematic heroes. However, the fact that Sanjurō does not hesitate to kill also reveals what the Samurai Trilogy and other period films of the 1950s only suggest – namely that their heroes are killing machines and alienated characters (9).
As in Shichinin no samurai, Kurosawa pursues a realistic streak in which external elements are a reflection of life conditions and an inner struggle and thus appropriate for this alienated loner hero. The yōjinbō’s kimomo is greasy, his hair unkempt, his face unshaven. To these physical aspects Mifune adds mannerisms that underline the character’s poverty, loneliness and marginality. Gestures are means of characterization. The way he tucks his hands inside his kimono to keep them warm, scratching himself frequently and chewing on a toothpick also contribute to the ironical detachment that inspires the portrayal of this hero (10). “Sanjurō never presents himself as a defender of social justice; he is a self-consciously humorous character who always maintains a critical distance from himself” (11), a description that Mifune’s economic acting supports magnificently with his amused, laid-back attitude. The speed with which he changes the expression on his face, – an ability that Kurosawa admired so much – and his enormous creativity as an actor made him the perfect choice for the role. As for his walk – swaying movements, his shoulders hunched –, it is Mifune’s own creation, heightened by framing, camera lenses and music (12).
Mifune’s performance is a marvellous match for Kurosawa’s complex mise en scène and Miyagawa Kazuo’s sublime cinematography. Constant use of deep focus, allowing maximum detail in the shot, together with unsettling close-ups create a highly elaborate visual experience. The unusual orchestration of Satō Masaru’s soundtrack prefigures Ennio Morricone’s music for Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns. Its playfulness, contrasting with the violent action, creates a comic counterpoint that is a further contribution to the genre subversion at the core of the film. Humour is an important part of the narrative and is also captured in a number of caricatures such as the cowardly town constable Hansuke (Sawamura Ikio). In the Toei productions and in the “cinema of cruelty” that followed the success of Kurosawa’s film, humour is absent. It is also the element that most clearly distinguishes Yōjinbō from “other graphically violent films” (13) such as Kobayashi Masaki’s masterpiece Seppuku (Harakiri, 1962).

Post-war masculinities
The yōjinbō is a hero endowed with almost supernatural powers. The way he unbelievably escapes death in impossible situations also contributes to the film’s ironical dimension, bypassing realism. This combination of supernatural powers and alienation makes Sanjurō a symbol of his time, his marginalization creating a link to Japan’s recent past. “Although this film is set at the end of the Tokugawa era (1600-1868) when Japan was ‚forced‘ to open to the West and began to modernize, the roots of Yojimbo do not lie only in the imagined heroic past but also in the moral dilemma of the immediate postwar era.” (14) In one of the first sequences, the protagonist crosses paths with a stray dog carrying a severed human hand in its mouth. The sight of the dog with the human hand is a signal to the ronin of the state of anarchy in the town; and the viewer is also invited to identify the lone figure in his shabby clothes with the dog. Not unlike the animal, he lives on the margins of society, a reminder in 1961 of the Japanese soldiers returning from the battlefields in China or the Pacific who were regarded as outcasts by their compatriots and considered no better than stray dogs – a topic that Kurosawa addressed directly in Nora inu (Stray Dog, 1949). Here, Mifune plays a young police inspector who tries to overcome his war trauma and adapt to the new, peaceful Japanese society in a film dealing symbolically with the feeling of emasculation experienced by many Japanese men after defeat in 1945 (15). Sanjurō, by contrast, displays a newly regained masculine strength which is, however, tainted by alienation and loneliness as symptoms of a society dominated by materialism and greed. The past is inseparable from the present; and the historical setting becomes infused with social and political meaning. Addressing modern-day concerns about a corrupt society in which politics, the economy and crime are intertwined, Kurosawa’s 1961 jidaigeki continues the critical discourse of his previous film Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru (The Bad Sleep Well, 1960) set in 1960s Japan (16).
Intertextual elements support the film’s reflections on masculinity and heroism. The elderly yojinbō Homma, who leaves the town before the first fight, waving good-bye to his colleague, is played by Fujita Susumu, the star in Kurosawa’s directorial debut Sugata Sanshirō (Sanshiro Sugata, 1943). As Stephen Prince puts it, “the moment becomes self-referential, a scene in which the two heroes, past and present, of Kurosawa’s cinema meet.” (17) The idealistic young man represented by the judoka Sanshirō is replaced by the middle-aged alienated hero played by Mifune. “It is also a farewell to a more innocent conception of the past, as an era that could nurture Sanshirō’s childlike optimism and spiritual commitment. From now on, the force of history would be felt in terms incompatible with these conditions.” (18) This brief moment in the film is also a reminder that since Yoidore tenshi (Drunken Angel, 1948, Kurosawa), Mifune has presented a far more complex masculinity than Fujita did in Sugata Sanshirō and its sequel (19), a masculinity less concerned with physical prowess than with the inner struggle of the male protagonists.
However, this estranged and violent hero is still capable of altruism. He saves Nui (Tsukasa Yōko) and her family from violence and humiliation and, in giving them all his money, rejects his materialism. Nor does he kill the young peasant who has joined one of the gangs. Instead, he sends him back to his parents, repaying the couple for their kindness when they let him drink water from their well on his arrival in the town. Sanjurō’s violence contrasts with that of Unosuke (Nakadai Tatsuya), the younger brother of one of the gang bosses terrorizing the town. When the innkeeper asks whether he scripted the series of killings, Sanjurō answers: “Half of it. The other part was written by him”, referring to Unosuke. This reply perhaps suggests that he and Unosuke are two sides of the same coin, evoking the doppelganger motif Kurosawa so often explored in his films and with Unosuke, the incarnation of evil, being the yōjinbō’s dark side.
Unosuke, the younger of the two men and not a samurai is the symbol of a new, changing society and, as indicated by the fact that he uses a pistol, influenced by the West. He is the extreme version of modern Japanese youth, even though he does not wear an Aloha shirt like the yakuza Matsunaga in Yoidore tenshi or the rebellious teenager in Ikimono no kiroku (Record of a Living Being, 1955, Kurosawa). In Yōjinbō, the sword wins out over the firearm, tradition over modernity. Anarchy and crime are abolished, but order is only restored by resorting to violence and repression. There is no feeling of harmony or liberation in a world permeated by crime and corruption when the yōjinbō turns his back on the town to continue his solitary life on the road.

Notes
1. Shiba, the ronin played by Tamba Tetsurō in Gosha Hideo’s Sanbiki no samurai (Three Outlaw Samurai, 1964), is reminiscent of the character created by Kurosawa and Mifune in Yōjinbō. Mifune played the lead in the film’s sequel Tsubaki Sanjurō (Sanjuro, Japan, 1962, Kurosawa Akira) and he played the ambiguous, alienated figure of the yōjinbō in Inagaki Hiroshi’s Machibuse (Incident at Blood Pass, 1970) and Okamoto Kihachi’s Zatōichi to yōjinbō (Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo, 1970), both produced by Mifune’s production company. He also portrayed the ronin/yōjinbō in several television series produced by his company such as Kaya no surōnin (Ronin of the Wastelands, 1973-1974) and Surōnin makaritorū (The Lowly Ronin, 1981-1983), where this figure is a much less rounded character.2. “A new genre of film called ‚cruel film‘ (zankoku eiga) emerged in the wake of the commercial success of Yojimbo and its ’sequel‘ Sanjuro. In 1963, for instance, Toei’s most successful film at the box office was no longer a formulaic jidaigeki film but Imai Tadashi’s Cruel Stories of Bushido (Bushidō zankoku monogatari), an omnibus film that graphically depicts the masochistic sufferings of the protagonists over seven generations.” (Yoshimoto Mitsuhiro, Kurosawa: Film Studies and Japanese Cinema, Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 2012 [2000], p. 290-291). The heightening of graphic violence is also visible in the Spaghetti Western, a genre that began with Sergio Leone’s remake of Kurosawa’s film.
3. The perpendicular, medium-length shots frequently used in Yōjinbō became an action film convention and were exploited by directors such as George Lucas, one of the many admirers of Kurosawa.
4. With regard to these possible references, Dolores P. Martinez (“Kurosawa’s Noir Quartet: Cinematic Musings on How to Be a Tough Man” in Chi-Yun Shin and Mark Gallagher, eds.   London/New York, I.B. Taurus, 2015, p. 37-52) examines Yōjinbō in the context of film noir and Japanese folklore whereas Gerald Sim (“Cinematic Expressions of Rakugo in Akira Kurosawa’s Comedies Yojimbo and Sanjuro”, Asian Cinema, Fall/Winter 2011, p. 253-268) reveals the film’s close links with Rakugo, a traditional Japanese form of entertainment.

5. Yoshimoto, op. cit., p. 289.

6. Leonard Ginsberg, Rhapsody on a Film by Kurosawa, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013, p. 16.

7. The period film was very much an innovative genre in the second half of the 1920s and in the 1930s in which directors such as Shōzō Masahiro, Itō Daisuke, Itami Mansaku and Yamanaka Sadaō expressed social criticism through criticism of the bushidō. Their films, having abandoned the Kabuki-inspired style of earlier productions, contained spectacular swordfighting scenes and were characterized by more realistic acting. Their heroes often played by the stars of that period – Tsumasaburō Bandō and Ōkōchi Denjirō – were social outcasts and the settings the poor quarters of Edo (present-day Tokyo).
8. Japanese society of the Tokugawa era was divided into four classes: samurai, peasants, craftsmen and merchants. The merchants, whose world was money, were much despised by the ruling warrior class, whose ethos put honour above material needs.
9. In Inagaki Hiroshi’s Sohen Sasaki Kojirō (Kojiro Sasaki, 1950), Mifune had already played Miyamoto Musashi, a minor character in the film. This Musashi is clearly guided by his killing instinct, his savagery underlined by Mifune’s energetic acting and wild glares.
10. The reference to a toothpick has a historical foundation. Ruth Benedict writes: “They [the samurai] were forbidden to give way to hunger but that was too trivial to mention. They were enjoined when they were starving to pretend they had just eaten: they must pick their teeth with a toothpick. ‚Baby birds,‘ the maxim went, ‚cry for their food but a samurai holds a toothpick between his teeth.’” (The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture, Boston, Mass., Mariner Books. 2006 (1946), Kindle edition, no pagination. The fact that the poor ronin in Yōjinbō chews on the toothpick has nothing to do with honour – he is truly starving.

11. Yoshimoto, op. cit., p. 292.

12. See Donald Richie, who refers to a statement by Kurosawa (The Films of Akira Kurosawa, third edition expanded and updated with a new epilogue, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1996, p. 155).

13. Yoshimoto, op. cit., p. 292.

14. Martinez, op. cit., p. 37.

15. Yoidore tenshi (Drunken Angel, 1948), Shizukanaru kettō (The Quiet Duel, 1949) and Nora inu.

16. Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru and Yōjinbō were the first two films produced by Kurosawa’s own production company, established in 1959.

17. Stephen Prince, The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa, revised and expanded edition, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1999, p. 230.

18. Prince, ibid., p. 230

19. Two years after the release of Sugata Sanshirō, Fujita Susumu played the role of Sanshirō in Zoku Sugata Sanshirō (Sanshiro Sugata II, Kurosawa, 1945).

 

by Andrea Grunert

Ginrei no hate (Snow Trail aka To the End of the Silver Mountain, 1947) is a film rarely shown but one that deserves more attention – not only because of its importance in film history as it marks Mifune Toshirō’s screen debut but also because of some of its dramatic and aesthetic aspects, to which Mifune’s amazing performance makes a significant contribution. It is also the first full-length feature film directed by Taniguchi Senkichi, with whom Mifune continued working, making ten films altogether (1). Like his friend Kurosawa Akira, Taniguchi started working in the Japanese film industry as an assistant of Yamamoto Kajirō, who also became a kind of mentor to the young actor Mifune (2). The script was co-written and allegedly also co-edited by Kurosawa. Ginrei no hate is a thriller revolving around the flight of three bank robbers into a remote mountain region in the Japanese Alps. Nojiri (Shimura Takashi), Eijima (Mifune) and Takasuji (Kosugi Yoshio) become trapped in a snowbound mountain pass. The police are hard on their heels and the elderly Takasuji is killed by an avalanche, but his two accomplices find refuge in a ski lodge run by Harukō, an adolescent girl (Wakayama Setsukō), and her grandfather (Kōdō Kokuten). Taniguchi makes use of the hard-boiled thriller to explore human attitudes and universal values, and the wintry landscape (3), an unusual setting for the genre, takes on a variety of dramatic and symbolic functions. 

The ideal of home

Nojiri is introduced as leader of the gang, someone who does not hesitate to impose his authority with a gun. The sunglasses he wears at the lodge where the robbers stay at the beginning of their flight contribute to the aura of danger that emanates from him. His self-control and authority contrasts with Eijima’s aggressiveness and agitation and with Takasuji’s nervousness and fearfulness. Takasuji’s death early in the film leaves the focus on Nojiri and Eijima. From the very beginning, Eijima is represented as evil, casting angry glances at the waitress who refuses to give him the bottles of sake he requires. At gunpoint he forces the experienced mountaineer Honda (Kōno Akitake) to lead him and Nojiri over the snowy mountain. Honda, a friend of Harukō and her grandfather and a guest at their lodge, saves Eijima’s life during their attempt to climb the mountain. A series of alternate shots show Eijima hanging helplessly on his rope and the exhausted Honda – whose arm is broken – with Eijima shouting furiously: “Hey, stop being lazy. Pull me up!” A little later and despite this rescue, the young bank robber is prepared to leave Honda behind. And suspecting possible betrayal, he secretly kills Harukō’s beloved carrier pigeon. His cold comment when the dead bird is buried by the tearful girl is: “What a waste! It should have been roasted and eaten.”

Unlike the ruthless Eijima, Nojiri is capable of empathy. And unlike Eijima, he cares about their older accomplice Takasuji when the latter is unable to keep up with them as they leave their temporary refuge in a hut. Nojiri is also genuinely saddened by Takasuji’s death whereas Eijima’s only regret is the loss of Takasuji’s share of the booty. Nojiri gives Harukō and her grandfather a helping hand in the lodge whereas Eijima is disrespectful and constantly complains, on one occasion remarking: “Hey, do the guests have to bathe after the family in this house?” It is Nojiri who, at the end of the film, carries the helpless Honda back to the lodge, where the police are already waiting. Nojiri accepts his fate, giving priority to the life of another person over his own freedom. 

The bank robbers’ flight into the forbidding mountain region is depicted as an inner journey for Nojiri whose humanity emerges through his contact with the three friendly people in the ski lodge and its homely atmosphere. Eijima is incapable of change and dies fighting Nojiri, who is trying to protect Honda. Nojiri is deeply affected by the hospitality offered by the people at the lodge and he enjoys the peaceful atmosphere there. This harmony is reflected in the theme music associated with the lodge, written by composer Ifukube Akira. The film starts with a series of very brief shots that include shadowy human silhouettes robbing a bank safe, the police setting out on their hunt for the criminals and a train passing through an empty landscape. Ifukube’s haunting music, anticipating his score for Gojira (Godzilla, 1954, Honda Ishirō), matches at this point the dynamism of the sequence and its inherent violence. Menacing, hammering sounds accompany the departure of Honda, Nojiri and Eijima on their doomed journey over the mountain, and when Eijima dies off-screen, the music rises to a crescendo. A slower and low-register variation of the tender melody associated with the small lodge returns at the end of the film when a shot of the mountains and a close-up of Nojiri, looking at them from the train which is taking him to prison, overlap in a dissolve. Nojiri was part of the violence but has turned from tough guy into responsible human being, the music commenting on his transformation. Music also plays a significant role in the sequence in which Nojiri shares moments of happiness with his hosts and Honda, listening to a record of “My Old Kentucky Home”. For him, the song is the link to the lodge where he found harmony and inner peace, and it is heard again when he is led away by the police, where it suggests hope at a moment of despair.

The tiny ski lodge, half buried in the snow, symbolizes home and is a place which is real as well as symbolic. It is tinged with melancholy as it apparently evokes what Nojiri’s present life lacks. However, he must serve his sentence before he can return to and enjoy a peaceful life. Ginrei no hate is a film about the possibility of redemption, expressed in a series of shots of Nojiri’s illuminated face when he listens, his head lowered, to the American song. Unlike Eijima, he becomes part of the small community in the lodge, and when he returns, the semi-conscious Honda on his back, his face reveals an inner struggle before he finally throws away his revolver – a significant gesture on his path to redemption – and continues walking towards the ski lodge.

The only information given in the film about Nojiri’s previous life is the mention of his daughter, who died when she was of Harukō’s age and who is for him a haunting absence-presence. Harukō is still a child, mourning the death of her pigeon and welcoming the two robbers with a cheerful “Yoo-hoo!”. Nojiri’s encounter with the girl, who reminds him of his own daughter, is also a reminder of long-forgotten human relations and a harbinger of hope. She represents joy and purity, the purity Nojiri and Eijima have lost. 

On a visual level, it is the whiteness of the snow that is a reference to purity. In Buddhism, white is also associated with self-mastery and redemption, topics that are addressed in the film through the characters and their actions. Snow symbolizes the fragility of human life and its evanescence, an important Buddhist motif that permeates Japanese culture and in particular film culture. According to Buddhist cyclical thinking, evanescence also embraces hope. In the film, the idea of rebirth and renewal is expressed verbally by the characters looking forward to the upcoming spring and by the motif of the “Rosenmorgen” (4) mentioned by Honda – that moment at sunrise when the snow takes on a pink tinge. The film is shot in black-and-white, so it is up to the viewer to imagine the shades of colour. However, the landscape shots convey perfectly an impression of great beauty. “Views of Honda, filmed against daylight, recall paintings by Caspar David Friedrich. Not unlike the works of this German artist of the Romantic period, the cinematography transforms the landscape into an emotive subject, capturing man’s reunion with his spiritual self while contemplating nature.” (5) 

The human condition

Eijima, unable to understand Honda’s feelings, mocks them, spitting his words out scornfully. While the others are enjoying a moment of leisure, he is busy counting his share of the booty – money is the only thing he is interested in – and he is constantly on his guard. The swift and sudden movements in Mifune’s acting are a perfect expression of Eijima’s changing mood. Much is in the gaze – suspicion, indifference, boredom as well as contempt for his hosts and Honda, but also for Nojiri, whose sudden tender feelings he cannot share or understand (“It seems that you have got senile since yesterday”). He rejects all the values cherished and shared by the others in the lodge, his face expressing his disdain for everything around him there. In the communal bedroom with its bunks, he says angrily: “This is like a prison cell in a foreign movie”. His meandering gaze, his energetic body language and his glowing eyes reveal Eijima’s almost constant agitation. In one shot, he walks back and forth in the bedroom, reminiscent of a caged animal. 

Cynical and irritable, Eijima is the typical young man in rebellion – a rebellion against Nojiri – a kind of surrogate father – against family and, implicitly, against the new order imported from the United States. Home, as represented by the ski lodge, is linked via the American song to the values of the occupying forces in Japan (6). Ginrei no hate presents a family, but one that is dysfunctional, namely a young girl living with her grandfather. The fate of the absent parents is not mentioned, but the viewer can presume that the family was separated by the war and/or that Harukō’s parents are dead, and that Nojiri’s daughter was also a victim of the war. The film mentions neither the war nor the occupation but contains enough allusions to connect its characters with Japan’s recent past (7). 

Values of family, group solidarity and harmony are part of Japanese culture and were instrumentalized by the wartime military government. In Taniguchi’s film, the vision of home as a haven of peace has a more sentimental dimension that is reminiscent of Hollywood productions (8). However, this sentimentalism is still far from kitsch and it cleverly supports the film’s message of humanity. Nojiri is surprised that Honda saved his life in the mountains, but Honda explains: “That’s the rule of the mountain. You never cut the rope under any circumstances. The rope that ties humans can never be cut for any reason. I just followed that rule.” (9). The film associates this mountaineers’ code of conduct with universal topics and reflections on the human condition. The breathtaking beauty of the snow-covered landscape, shown in a great number of general shots, and also the danger that lurks in this natural environment, exposes the pettiness of Eijima’s moaning and quarreling.

The human being is at the core of this film, an aspect supported by the frequent close-ups of faces and their great variety of expressions. Ginrei no hate deals with individual responsibility, a key topic in the intellectual discourse in Japan after the war. It points to the need for healing – both for the individual and for society. The film underwent censorship and was apparently acceptable in the eyes of the Allied censors, who in general wanted positive endings with the punishment of the culprits and a positive representation of the police. However, the desire for harmony and peace was not only something imposed by the victors but was presumably genuine and also shared by many viewers at that time. In this film, the ideal of harmony is extended to include the occupiers, with music becoming a unifying force and “My Old Kentucky Home” moving Nojiri deeply. After Honda has explained the significance of Kentucky and the content of the song (“The song is about a place dear to someone’s heart”), Nojiri says: “I see. There is no difference in human feelings between the West and Japan.”

Rebellion

A highly suggestive shot/reverse shot sequence juxtaposes the lodge’s homely interior with Eijima lying in his bunk in the bedroom, his gaze and body language showing his growing irritation. The idyll in the main room of the lodge is destroyed by the sudden appearance of the wild-looking Eijima, who emerges from the shadows and angrily demands that the music stop. A feeling of fear and danger emanates from this sombre figure who darts angry glances at the others and from the expressionist lighting, which matches his dark character perfectly. In feeling provoked by the song, Eijima’s implicitly rejects the American values. His rebellion targets the ideal of home, of harmony and also of solidarity, even rejecting the film’s message of humanity. His egoism is a form of individualism opposed to the individual responsibility that the film advocates. 

Eijima embodies evil but is also a lost soul. His constant mistrust excludes him from the human warmth of the group. He is jealous of the happiness of the others, a feeling that he does not seem to know or at least has not experienced for a long time (10). His materialism hints at the loss of humanity in post-war Japan, but Eijima is also the representative of a betrayed young generation, sacrificed by the military regime during the war years. The prototype of a disoriented youth, this character in the film provokes to reflections on masculinity. In the sequence in which he leaves the bathroom in the first lodge, Eijima, wearing only a fundoshi (11) struts like a peacock, showing off his muscular body. However, this kind of manliness is questioned in Ginrei no hate, which shows that it relies on the power of the gun. Eijima’s arrogance is a mask behind which he hides feelings of insecurity and also the fear of emasculation that many Japanese men had to come to terms with after defeat in the war.  

Mifune plays the brutish Eijima with an intensity which was unusual in Japanese cinema (12). Eijima is a somewhat one-dimensional character, but Mifune’s acting gives it considerable depth. In his performance, he skillfully reveals and explores this character’s potential and its many facets (13). His Eijima is defiant, arrogant, and unbending, but also possesses an indomitable hunger for life. This energetic approach to the role reveals how much acting contributes to the message of a film, in this case also making the character attractive to the audience in post-war Japan. Eijima expressed what “many in the audience yearned to show the world but didn’t dare” (14).

NOTES

1 – These films include Jakoman to Tetsu (Jakoman and Tetsu, 1949), Fukeyo haru kaze (Blow! Spring Wind aka My Wonderful Yellow Car, 1953), Kunisada Chūji (Chuji, The Gambler, 1960) and Kiganjō no bōken (The Adventure at Kigan Castle, 1966). 

2 – See Kurosawa, Akira. Something Like an Autobiography, New York, Vintage Books, 1983, p. 160-161.

3 – Although set in the Japanese Alps, the film was shot on the island of Hokkaido

4 – The film makes use of the German term “Rosenmorgen”, which can be translated as “rose morning”.

5 – See also Grunert, Andrea. “An Inner Journey in a Wintry Landscape (Snow Trail, 1947)”, http://www.thebigpicturemagzine.com, 29 November 2016. The landscape shots evoke films by German mountain film pioneer Arnold Fanck (1889-1974), known for Die weiße Hölle von Pitz Palü (White Hell of Pitz Palu, USA, 1929, co-directed by G.W. Pabst) or Stürme über dem Mont Blanc (Storm over Mont Blanc, Germany, 1930). Fanck directed the first German-Japanese co-production Atarashiki tsuchi (The Daughter of the Samurai, 1937). 

6 – The Allied occupation of Japan after World War II was led by the United States of America. It ended on 28 April 1952.

7 – This absence of the war topic can be explained by the strict censorship of the Allies, which was not lifted until 1949.  

8 – Hollywood’s influence on Japanese cinema started long before the occupation, having inspired Japanese filmmakers since the 1920s. 

9 – The fact that Taniguchi himself was a mountaineer explains the setting of Ginrei no hate in which the director describes a milieu he was familiar with. 

10 – The homecoming soldiers were often rejected, treated as stray dogs by their fellow Japanese. Seaton, Philip A. Japan’s Contested War Memories: The “Memory Rifts” in Historical Consciousness of World War II, London/New York, Routledge, 2007 and Igarashi, Yoshikuni. Homecomings: The Belated Return of Japan’s Lost Soldiers, New York, Columbia University Press, 2016. 

11 – A fundoshi is a traditional Japanese undergarment for male adults, a loincloth made from a length of cotton which covers the private parts but leaves the buttocks exposed. It was more and more replaced by western style men’s underwear after 1945.

12 – See Kurosawa, op. cit., p. 161.

13 – Mifune presumably drew on his wartime experience. In several interviews he referred to the war, recalling how much his rebellious behaviour and his wilfulness caused problems with his superiors, who already felt offended by his deep voice. The challenge to authority is a key theme in many films with Mifune in which he played rebels and outsiders, for example in his third film, Yoidore tenshi (Drunken Angel, 1948, Kurosawa Akira). 

14 – Satō, Tadao. Kurosawa Akira no sekai (Tokyo, 1970, p. 121) quoted in Keiko I McDonald. Reading a Japanese Film: Cinema in Context, Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 2006, p. 263, note 6. 

WEDDING RING

 

by Andrea Grunert

In this year that marks the centenary of Mifune Toshirō’s birth (he was born on 1 April 1920 and died on 24 December 1997), I am still surprised how much his versatility is overlooked. He is celebrated as an international star and as an icon inextricably linked to the figure of the samurai, as in the documentary Mifune: The Last Samurai (USA/Japan, Steven Okazaki, 2015), but this tends to obscure the great creativity with which he approached all his roles. It is true that Mifune was often typecast – as a samurai or as a senior army or navy officer. However, even in his most stereotypical roles, he succeeded in creating fleshed-out individuals, employing a great variety of expressive means to make them convincing and appealing. Mifune started his career in gendai geki (1) such as Ginrei no hate (Snow Trail, Taniguchi Senkichi, 1947) and Yoidore tenshi (Drunken Angel, Kurosawa Akira, 1948), in which he played the young rebel, captivating Japanese filmgoers with his unusually intense acting style (2). In the early years of his career he was sometimes cast in romantic roles – as the young and sexually inexperienced peasant who finds love quite by chance in the third episode of Naruse Mikio’s Ishinaka sensei gyōjōki (Conduct Report on Professor Ishinaka, 1950) or the bank employee in love with a married woman in Tsuma no kokoro (A Wife’s Heart, Naruse, 1956). Film critic Satō Tadao calls Mifune the “classic example of the tateyaku” (3), the strong male in kabuki theatre (4), and states: “Since his debut in 1947 he has appeared in approximately one hundred and twenty films. However, as far as I remember, he has only played three or four love scenes, in which he was so terribly miscast that they are a clear case of the exception proving the rule.” (5) I disagree with Satō’s claim. There is a clear romantic element in the character of some of the heroic swordfighters Mifune played in numerous jidai geki (6) in the 1950s and early 1960s (7). Both here and in those films in which he was cast as the young lover, he explores the many facets of his roles through his vivid and inventive acting style, heightened by his charisma and sex appeal. This is especially true for Kinoshita Keisuke’s Konyaku yubiwa (Wedding Ring aka Engagement Ring, 1950), a film in which Kinoshita deals with love and passion in a surprisingly light-hearted manner. The topic of unfulfilled love has rich potential for tragedy, but Kinoshita chose instead a mixture of melodrama and comedy. In this film, Mifune plays a doctor, Ema, who falls in love with Noriko, the wife of one of his patients. Tanaka Kinuyo is cast as Kuki Noriko and Uno Jūkichi as her husband Michio. Konyaku yubiwa gives Mifune the opportunity to display his youthful charm in the role of a kindly young man (8) and to show his talent for comedy and for emotional intensity.

Context and characters

The focus in Konyaku yubiwa is on the three main characters and the relationships between them. At a formal level, the elegant switches between close-ups and landscape photography indicate the link between the private and the public sphere and the symbolic relevance of personal experience as a social microcosm. Most of the action takes place in the seaside town of Ajirō, in the southern part of Atami (9), and at the Kukis’ mansion in this resort. The viewer is given a few glimpses of the bustling life in Tokyo, where the Kuki family owns a jeweller’s shop. There are impressions of everyday life such as the shots of passengers leaving a train at the station or on the crowded bus going to Ajirō. The many close-ups and medium close-ups of the main characters are a clear indication that the emphasis is on human beings. Their story and their feelings give insights into Japanese society recovering from wartime destruction. A number of shots evoke an idyll untouched by the violence of war – the coastline scenery with cherry trees in bloom, the park with plum trees, the picturesque inn, the beach in Ajirō. The Kukis live in an elegant mansion, implying business success. However, this idyll is undermined by hidden fears, sexual frustration, repressed desires and jealousy. Michio, suffering from tuberculosis (10), is weakened from his illness. His tanka poems reveal his pessimistic world view as does the sad expression on his face, captured by the camera in a number of close-ups. Obsessed by his inability to lead a normal married life, he is plagued by self-doubt, making him the epitome of the defeated Japanese male, helpless and emasculated. Male vigour and youthful strength are represented by the handsome and rugged Ema, who is bursting with energy. Mifune’s muscular body, showcased in the scenes in which Ema wears swimming trunks, contrasts with Michio’s emaciated face and obvious physical weakness.

Ema is not the only character with contagious vitality. Noriko is an active woman who runs the family business, something that the men in the Kuki family are unable (Michio) or unwilling (Michio’s father) to do. This is a rather unusual role for a Japanese woman, despite the fact that during the war women had to replace men in factories and do other typically male jobs and despite the efforts of the Occupation forces to strengthen the role of women in Japanese society, who for centuries had been suppressed in a rigid patriarchal system. (11) During the week, Noriko even lives alone in Tokyo in order to fulfil her duties at the Kukis’ large jeweller’s shop. It is on one of her trips back home that she and Ema first meet. In a crowded bus, Ema, standing next to the seated Noriko, catches a glimpse of her. But instead of her face, the camera focus is on the wedding ring (12) on her finger. The ring and Ema’s shoes are the two objects that repeatedly appear, symbolizing the development of the relationship between the doctor and Noriko. The ring marks Noriko as taboo for Ema, and this situation is at the core of the complicated relationships between the three protagonists and the film’s moral discourse. Close-ups of the ring figure in the sequence in which Noriko first touches Ema, though she does so only playfully, and on several other occasions when she has already decided against deepening her relationship with the doctor. However, there is a significant moment during a trip back to Tokyo when she has – accidentally, as she claims – left the ring at home, a ring which she treasures so much that, during the war, she had hidden it from the military when they were confiscating luxury items as contributions to the war effort. Facing hardship because of her love for Michio, she now finds herself on the threshold of adultery. Torn between love for Michio and the desire inflamed in her by Ema, she reveals her feelings to the doctor, saying that she no longer looks forward to the week-ends spent with her sick husband.

The wedding ring is a symbol and a constant reminder of conjugal fidelity; and Ema’s shoes also play an important role in the relationship that develops between Ema and Noriko. In the first sequence of the film, Noriko smiles when she notices Ema’s old white sneakers, shown in close-up. When they meet in Tokyo, she offers him elegant leather shoes, finding them more appropriate for a doctor. When they meet again, she is surprised to discover that he still wears his sneakers, which he explains by saying that they are more comfortable. Following a further meeting with Noriko, who is clearly flirting with him, the confused Ema, struggling with his emotions, is heading for the station, the sneakers shown in close-up. The next shot is another close-up, now of Ema wearing the new shoes and walking in the opposite direction, towards the Kukis’ mansion. This acceptance of the gift suggests his acceptance of his feelings and hints at the possibility of adultery.

The two objects not only have dramatic and symbolic meaning but also serve to avoid excessive sentimentality and function as effective and economic narration. With its clever blend of melodrama and humour, Kinoshita’s film reveals a wide range of feelings and great human complexity. The first deliberate physical contact between Noriko and Ema is when she runs after him, bringing him the notebook with her husband’s tanka poems – really just a pretext to talk to the doctor again before he leaves for Atami. Taken aback by Noriko saying: “Your hands are so strong,” Ema replies with a big smile: “No, these are gentle hands.” Noriko playfully taps his hand, which he pulls away quickly, looking bewildered. A close-up of Ema’s face reveals his inner turmoil when he continues walking toward the trains station. However, after this scene the doctor starts to wear the new leather shoes. Noriko’s sexual desire is fully revealed in the scene in which she stares at Ema’s jacket, drenched with sweat. She touches her face with her hands as if in agony and then hides it behind them before plunging it into the garment and breathing in deeply the smell of Ema’s body. Ema’s confusion about his feelings for Noriko reaches a peak during their last meeting, when the young man, a look of despair on his face, asks Noriko if he can cry in her lap. His jacket is a symbol and a substitute for his body; but despite their attraction to each other, Noriko’s and Ema’s mutual desire will not lead to fulfilment. In the moments of intimacy  – in the train, at the beach, in the park, in the inn – they reveal their feelings for each other but also their concern for Michio and, in Noriko’s case, her love for him. Desire is always accompanied by feelings of guilt, which are expressed not only verbally but also in the acting. “I can hear my heart beating very fast,” says Ema after swimming in the sea, pointing out that he has not had an opportunity to go swimming for a while and is therefore a bit “rusty”. Addressing these words to Noriko with a bright smile, they may suggest a deeper meaning. Noriko, hardly able to suppress her desire, seems to take this remark as an invitation and touches his naked shoulder. Then follows a cut to Ema’s face in close-up, looking embarrassed. Noriko, seemingly hurt by his reaction, takes a few steps back. Looking at each other, their faces have an expression of both desire and shame.

Contradictory feelings

Ema acts as a catalyst, helping the couple to overcome the crisis in their married life. Noriko, feeling she is desired by a man, is blossoming again (13) and Michio awakens from his lethargy and self-pity. The first encounter between Noriko and Ema in the bus is interspersed by shots of cherry trees in bloom – a symbol of rebirth. This encounter is depicted in an almost comical manner – Ema, having lost his balance in the bus, stumbles and falls into her lap (14). The simple, jaunty tune which accompanies the bus trip contributes to the buoyant rhythm of this sequence, prefiguring the awakening of their feelings for each other. Throughout the film, these feelings are communicated superbly by the two actors. Mifune’s sense of timing, so much admired by Kurosawa (15), and his juvenile nonchalance are the most obvious features, and they make a perfect contribution to the dramatic as well as to the comic moments in the film. When they first meet in the jeweller’s shop, Ema pokes his tongue out at Noriko – a clear indication  that they have already became closer (a little later in the same sequence the dialogue confirms this impression). In another sequence at the shop, Ema expresses his concern for Michio, blaming himself for wishing him dead. His face twisted with grief and his gestures – his hands running through his hair and scratching his legs – reflect his inner torment. His facial expressions and gestures are both natural and appropriate, matching the character’s youthful attitude.

Ema is depicted as a sympathetic young man who not only arouses feelings in Noriko but is very much respected by both Michio and his father. His sneakers and clothes of rather poor quality contrast with the wealth of the Kuki family, and close-ups of his face reveal how much he is impressed by the huge mansion in which his patient lives and by the Kukis’ large and elegant jeweller’s shop. They represent the kind of wealth that is completely unfamiliar to him. At one point he criticizes Michio’s self-pity, calling him superficial because he has never known poverty. However, there is a strong bond between the two men, both of whom served in the war. Ema, who confesses that he is in love for the first time, may be inexperienced in matters of love, but he is a caring person who takes his responsibilities as a doctor very seriously and has a profound desire to cure people.

A happy ending

In the second-last sequence Noriko joins Ema at an inn. The meeting takes place in a small room where dinner is served for the couple. The sequence is dramatically and visually complex, built upon facial and body expressions as well as gazes. Ema accepts Noriko’s decision to stay with her husband, but reveals his own feelings in a highly emotional manner. The focus is on Ema whose intense facial expressions, gestures and movements (16) are emphasized by camera positions and editing, to show how much he is torn between passion and duty. Both actors deliver fine and very nuanced performances in this long sequence, combining strong emotions with more light-hearted moments. One example is when the couple enjoys beers and talks about Michio’s future and his cure in the mountains.

The protagonists return to their traditional roles in society, in accordance with the moral conventions that the film clearly advocates. What has happened to Ema and Noriko was only “a passing fever”. It is not simply that Ema wears his sneakers again. Their return to traditional roles is further emphasized by the fact that Noriko abandons her western-style clothes and wears a kimono in the last part of the film. She has also decided to give up her life as a businesswoman and accompany her husband to a sanatorium in the mountains. Both Michio and Ema have a traditional view of women as faithful wives, and during the very emotional dialogue in the park, it is Ema who speaks with the voice of reason (“We need to cool our hearts”) and asks Noriko to stop crying as others are already staring at them. However, traditional Japanese masculinity has undergone some changes. Ema as well as Michio are depicted as men who admire Noriko for her vitality and treat her with great respect, an attitude more in line with western romantic concepts of love than with Japanese patriarchal traditions (17). The guilt-ridden Michio shows great understanding for his wife, and despite his increasing jealousy, he encourages her to join Ema at the beach. However, it is Noriko who plays the active part in her relationship with the young doctor, emphasized by the expensive looking shoes she offers him. Ema is depicted as an inexperienced young man, troubled by feelings previously unknown to him. Noriko assures her husband that nothing improper has happened between her and the doctor, who “is a nice man with pure intentions”. Without challenging moral conventions, Kinoshita reveals through emotionally intense moments, all marvellously supported by his cast, the conflicts that can arise from adhering to such conventions. In Konyaku yubiwa, the conflicts are resolved, and Kinoshita’s film has a happy ending not only for Noriko and Michio, for whom there is great hope of being cured, but for Ema as well who has a new patient to take care of – the young female bus conductor shown at the beginning of the film – and sees his two friends off in a joyful mood.

Notes

1 Films and tales set in the contemporary world.

2 See Andrea Grunert “Mifune Toshirō: A Star with a Thousand Faces”, https://shomingekionline.org, 31 March 2020.

3 Tadao Satō, Currents in Japanese Cinema, New York, Kodansha International 1987, p. 19.

4 The term tateyaku means literally “standing role”. It refers to the role of the heroic male in kabuki theatre.

5 Satō, ibid., p. 19.

6 The term can be roughly translated as “period film”.

7 Mifune played heroes with romantic qualities in several historical films such as Miyamoto Musashi (Samurai, Inagaki Hiroshi, 1954) and its two sequels (1955 and 1956), Yagyū bugeichō (The Yagyu Secret Scrolls, Inagaki Hiroshi, 1957), Nippon tanjō (The Three Treasures, Inagaki Hiroshi, 1959), Yagyū bugeichō – sōryū hiken (The Yagyu Secret Scrolls – Ninjutsu, Inagaki Hiroshi, 1958) and Ōsaka-jō monogatari (Daredevil in the Castle, Inagaki Hiroshi, 1961).

8 This sympathetic character matches Mifune’s image as projected in numerous fan magazines such as Kinda Eiga and Eiga Fan throughout the 1950s.

9 Atami is a resort famous for its hot springs.

10 See William Johnston, The Modern Epidemic: A History of Tuberculosis in Japan, Cambridge, Mass., The Council of East Asian Studies/Harvard University Press, 1997. It was not until the newly developed antibiotic streptomycin became available in Japan in 1948 that tuberculosis could be cured. (Cf. Johnston, ibid., p. 287)

11 For more information on gender roles in early post-war Japan see Naoko Shibusawa America’s Geisha Ally: Reimagining the Japanese Enemy, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 2006.

12 The diamond ring shown in frequent close-ups is Noriko’s engagement ring she wears on the outside of her wedding ring. However, in order to avoid any confusion about Noriko’s status as a married woman, I refer to it as “wedding ring”.

13 Michio comments on the fact that Noriko seems more beautiful than ever and he also observes that she no longer wears the same clothes most of the time and pays more attention to her appearance.

14 The comic moment in the bus when Ema is thrown into Noriko’s lap has its melodramatic counterpart at the inn when the desperate Ema asks Noriko if he can “cry in her lap”.

15 Akira Kurosawa, Something Like an Autobiography, New York, Vintage, 1983, p. 161.

16 For instance, while Noriko is kneeling in front of the dinner table, Ema leaves the table to sit down first at the windowsill and then on a chair at some distance from Noriko.

17 Mark McLelland points out that the attitudes in Japanese culture with regard to sex and gender that existed in the ‚opening‘ of Japan to the West remained unchanged for almost a hundred years. “Also odd [for the Japanese] was the extreme deference that Western men paid to their ‚ladies‘, at least in public. Although in the Confucian system men of lower status were able to show respect to high-status women without compromising their masculinity, the Western practice of ‚ladies first‘ in which men deferred to women in general seemed a peculiar idea, one that was still able to amaze Japanese people even in the early days of the American Occupation that was to take place almost a century later.” (McLelland, Love, Sex, and Democracy in Japan During the Occupation, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, p. 14)