On a par with Akira Kurosawa, creating a new genre of samurai films, what did "Deadly Sword" conquer the audience?

Masaki Kobayashi and Akira Kurosawa are both the Four Horsemen of the Japanese film industry.

Together with Ichikawa Kun, Kinoshita Keisuke, the Four Samurai Independent Production Company was formed, but Kurosawa's light on the halberd film did not hide the dazzle of Masaki Kobayashi.

Akira Kurosawa + Shinobu Hashimoto + Toshiro Mifune = classic film, Masaki Kobayashi + Shinobu Hashimoto + Tatsuya Nakayo, is also a representative of good films, plus a Toshiro Mifune, that is the unique samurai film "Sword of Life".

The story of "The Sword of Life" is not so twisted and bizarre, it is the old routine of officials forcing the people to rebel, and Masaki Kobayashi's narrative is also traditional classicism.

Although it is a sword and halberd film, there are very few martial arts parts, so why is "The Sword of Life" so praised, and even surpasses Kurosawa's samurai film? In two words - reasonable,

Shinobu Hashimoto's script can't fault a single thing, whether it is the motivation of the characters, the interpretation of Bushido, and the finishing touch of the times that have changed, they are all logical and deafening.

During the Tokugawa shogunate, when the hierarchy was strict and the ideology was solidified, the samurai under the lord of the domain obeyed the orders of the king.

The king's decree is the will of the gods, and no one can disobey it, and the subjects under the domain also engrave this prohibition in their marrow, and whether the lord does it right or wrong, it must be carried out unconditionally.

In such an old era, why did Izaburo (Toshiro Mifune), who was conscientious and endured humiliation, choose to disobey the lord and fight against him at all costs, abandoning the loyal monarch's bushido spirit?

Shinobu Hashimoto broke open at this point, crumbled the talk, from enduring, obeying, rejecting to accepting, vacillating, resisting, all intuitively displayed in front of the audience, without leaving the slightest loophole to pick.

Isaburo is a door-to-door son-in-law, and although he has achieved a career after twenty years of struggle, the fact that he has been plugged into the door has always kept him from lifting his head.

At home, the tigress was yelled at by the high-spirited tigress, nodding to the Lord outside, and even if he had the ability, he could only swallow his life.

The long-depressed living environment is the root of Isaburo's eventual outburst, and what is missing is only the primer to ignite this anger, and the lord is the one who handed the match.

The lord of the clan disliked the disrespect of the side concubine Aichi, so that Isaburo's son and Goro became married to him.

In the face of the lord's holy will, Izaburō's opposition was like scratching his boots, coupled with the reprimand of the dominatrix, and Goro agreed to the marriage, and Isaburo could only be forced to obey, but Ashi's words and deeds after marrying were far from the rumors.

Her great disobedience to the lord of the clan is not jealous that the lord has found a woman, but she is angry that she took the risk of her life just to make other women not repeat the same mistakes, but she can't stop the endless stream of flowers and willows who are sending hugs and lords.

Isaburo was impressed by Ashi's righteous deeds and gradually accepted the daughter-in-law.

After two years of getting along, Ashi gave birth to his daughter Megumi, and he and Goro respected him like a knee, and their couple's affection awakened Izaburō's long-sleeping samurai spirit.

He began to consciously stop obeying his wife's instructions and wanted to live the rest of his life again, but a note from the lord broke Isaburo's awakening.

The lord's concubine died suddenly, and Ashi became the heir of the son he had born, and wanted to recall Ashi to avoid losing his lineage.

The lord's renegade not only destroyed the relationship with Goro and Ashi, but also shattered Isaburo's dream of starting over, and made him unbearable for the lord's tyranny.

So he adamantly refused the unreasonable request of the envoy, gave encouragement when swinging with Goro, and remained steadfast, although tens of millions of people went to it, although the blood splattered three feet, he did not back down for half a point.

This is the reason for Isaburo's outburst, not in a moment of anger, but as a result of years of accumulation, and Shinobu Hashimoto's screenwriter is like a storyteller, telling this story.

As Isaburo stands up and resists, Masaki Kobayashi also borrows his character to say what Bushido is.

Bushido is the great of chivalry, for the country and the people, bushido is the emperor's order cannot be violated, but bushido is more discerning right from wrong, and sticks to justice in the heart.

Knowing that the lord of the clan is cruel and unscrupulous, only knows pleasure, ignores state affairs, but is still foolish and loyal, this is not bushido, knowing how to overthrow tyranny, but pretending to turn a blind eye or dare not expose it, this is not bushido.

Masaki Kobayashi and Shinobu Hashimoto highly affirmed and admired Isaburo's bushido.

The lord of the clan sent people to bring Ashi to make Isaburo and Yogoro submit, but Izaburo resolutely refused and invited them to kill.

During the saber rattling, Ashi committed suicide and Goro was killed, but Isaburo still did not change his original intention, took his granddaughter Koe, and planned to go to Edo to accuse the lord of his evil deeds.

If it is a traditional script, at this step, it will generally amplify personal heroism, so that Isaburo successfully leaves the country, the lord is accused to fall, and Isaburo and his granddaughter live ordinarily.

But Hashimoto Shinobu is powerful in his realism, how can the power of one person resist the many people, no matter how fast the sword is, how high the martial arts can be faster than the musket, the reunion is good, but it cannot change the power of the sky.

At the end of the movie, Nakayo Tatsuya did his duty to prevent Mifune Toshiro from crossing the border and died under Mifune Toshiro's knife, Mifune Toshiro was shot and killed, only two righteous samurai died, and the wind that seemed to stop in the clan blew again.

But Shinobu Hashimoto and Masaki Kobayashi are not pessimistic, and they still leave hope in the end.

Before he died, Izaburo told Megumi to be a woman like her mother, marry a man like her father, and let Megumi's nanny adopt Megumi, so who said that this wind that blew up was not a funeral song that broke the tyranny of the lord.

This kind of samurai film of "if the warrior will be angry, the corpse will be two, the blood will be five steps, the world is vegetarian, today is also" is completely different from Kurosawa's samurai film full of international ideas.

Masaki Kobayashi's samurai films are rooted in the local area, which can reflect the staleness of society and systems to the greatest extent, express the brilliance of human nature and awakening, and restore a real samurai era.