Here comes Masaki Kobayashi and Shinobu Hashimoto's "Death Sword".
Akira Kurosawa and Masaki Kobayashi are two of the japanese directors who are the favorites. Between the two masters, Akira Kurosawa portrays the clutch of Eastern and Western cultures to the fullest, while Masaki Kobayashi portrays the shono of traditional Japanese culture in three points.
Famous Japanese director and screenwriter Masaki Kobayashi
If it weren't for who made them, there was only one answer — screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto. Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon and Desire for Life, Kobayashi's Belly Cut and Sword of Death, and so on, he is the man standing behind the two masters.
Shinobu Hashimoto and Akira Kurosawa
Toshiro Mifune, who was nearly fifty years old and radiant with a matte beauty, co-starred in the film with tatsuya Nakadai, a thirty-five-year-old "old enemy", and in the early summer of 1967, there was a legend in the history of the film that "the soldier died for his confidant".
Poster for the movie "The Sword of Death"
Like "Cutting the Belly", "The Sword of Death" also portrays a classicist hero who rises up with his life to defend the dignity of being born and the meaning of practicing martial arts all his life in order to defend the anti-human system and absurdity.
In the shogunate era and even later in the militaristic era, such heroes were rare, people were alienated by the propaganda of the ruling class, the samurai class was reduced to a war machine of lords and the state, and human life was as light as a feather compared to the king's order. Moreover, the concessions and perfection in eastern culture have always been above human desires, even if there is a "crown and a red face", it is only a partial hero.
Like Masaki Kobayashi's "Conditions on Earth", the former tells the world what is the condition for being a human being through the story of a retrograde, while this film plays a samurai lament that has been haunting for a long time through the protagonist's sacrifice of Hisitakato, telling what is the true samurai and Bushido spirit.
During the Tokugawa shogunate period, the Aizu Domain warrior Sasabhara Isaburo (Toshiro Mifune) was armed with a unique sword technique and dutifully performed his duties, but he spent half his life at home breathing and enduring humiliation. There were two reasons, one was that Isaburo had no other skills than swordsmanship, and the other was that he had joined the Sasahara family more than twenty years ago, and he was only the nominal head of the Sasahara family.
In recent days, Isaburo has been very worried, and he tells his best friend Asano (Nakadai Tatsuya) that he is worried about the marriage of his eldest son Goro, and he hopes that Yushu Linfeng's son can form a happy family compared to his flying wife.
One day, matsudaira Masayō, the lord of the clan, expelled his concubine Aichi from the mansion on charges of great disrespect and ordered him to marry Goro, the eldest son of Isaburo. Isaburo begged for the sake of his son's happiness many times to pass on the order of the Lord Waiji and the old man of the family to no avail, and in desperation, Goro agreed to the marriage for the sake of family safety.
Surprisingly, after marriage, Ah Shi was obviously not as ignorant and cruel as rumored, but extremely humble, obedient, and a good wife of Neixian. Goro and Aichi love each other and live happily ever after.
The reason for Aichi's expulsion from the mansion is also solved in the couple's narration. At that time, the lord of the clan looked at her beauty and forcibly married, and her offense was only a response to the resentment that had accumulated for many years.
The length of the sun shadow, when Aichi gave birth to a baby girl Xiaofu, watching his son and daughter-in-law become more and more loving, Isaburo felt that he had finally fulfilled his wish, and there were no regrets in life.
However, things suddenly changed, the lord of the clan died of illness, and the son of Aichi became the heir of the lord of the clan, that is, Aichi would become the birth mother of the next lord of the clan. In order to protect the system, the lord of the clan decided to recall Ashi.
Dissatisfied with the rebellion of the lord of the clan, Isaburo strongly refused the unreasonable demands of the Grand Duke and the elder family. Although what awaited their father and son might be the king's order to cut the abdomen, even the entire Sasawara clan would be affected.
The Sahara family held a meeting in panic, and in the face of everyone's questioning and opposition, Goro and Aichi, with the firm support of their father Isaburo, responded to the stunned crowd with a vow of death.
The atmosphere became more and more solemn, and finally on the day when the father and son went out, the old lord of the clan colluded with Isaburo's wife and younger son to defraud Aichi, and then promised a heavy reward and promotion to the Sasahara family.
Looking at the unanheated little rich, the father and son are determined to defend the inviolable honor of the family and the samurai at the cost of blood. That night, Isaburo's friend Asano came to visit:
"Isaburo, will you borrow the Upanishads of your sword technique?" When the enemy advances, I retreat; if the enemy advances again, I retreat again; but if there is no way to retreat, it is like a torrent; you never take the initiative to attack, you wait patiently until the opponent is exhausted, or you can say, wait until he takes the initiative to give up. ”
The next day, Isaburo found the Grand Duke and the elder of the family and other important ministers, and read to them the will of the father and son to fight at all costs.
Isaburo's battle book obviously surprised everyone, and for a moment the courtiers did not know how to be good, and they sent Inano, whose swordplay was comparable to Thatsaburo's. Faced with high pressure, Asano categorically refused the task of assassinating Isaburo.
The lord of the clan was furious, and he asked the Grand Duke to lead a large group of men and horses to surround the Sasawara family, at this time, except for the father and son of Isaburo who sharpened their swords, the others had already fled.
When the swords between the two sides were fierce, the Grand Duke sacrificed Ah Shi in an attempt to bring the three people to their knees through the stakes. However, in the face of coercion and inducement, Aichi died on the spot, and Goro was also stabbed to death when he hugged his wife and wept. Seeing that his son and daughter-in-law were both martyred, Isaburo finally opened the peerless mode, and on the night of the dark wind in the moon, the Sasahara family mourned incessantly...
As the panicked Waiji Lord was pierced through the heart by a sword, everything returned to calm. Isaburo buried Goro and his wife in the courtyard.
At the end of the film, and the real climax, Isaburo confronts Asano, who guards the border, with a knife while holding his young granddaughter to cross the border to Edo. Asano is not foolish, but he is loyal to the duties of a samurai.
Before the duel between the two, they hugged Xiao Fu, like an old friend in the spring breeze gossiping, laughing and teasing Sun. Asano said to Isaburo, "Defeat me, for the good of The Little Rich." ”
The beauty and mood of the duel are as wonderful as the decisive battle between Sawagi Yankuro in "Cut belly", and Asano dies.
After that, what awaited Isaburo was the strangulation under the ambush on ten sides. Isaburo was alone in the tall grass, and as the long sword in his hand drew the shadow of the streamer sword, a corpse fell to the ground in response, drowning in the deep grass floating with the wind.
However, with the first gunshot, he could only be shot again and again and fell to the ground. Before dying, he crawled to his granddaughter with his last strength, "Xiaofu, we can't go to Edo anymore... Grow up to be a woman like your mother, marry a man like your father..."
In the last scene, the nurse picked up Xiaofu and walked up the winding mountain road, and she witnessed everything with her own eyes.
I am very grateful to Masaki Kobayashi and Shinobu Hashimoto, even if the sadness ends, it is the best love, loving father, confidant, and samurai.