#280: OKAMOTO, Kihachi: The Sword Of Doom (1966)

OKAMOTO, Kihachi [Japan]

The Sword Of Doom [1966]

Spine #280
DVD

Tatsuya Nakadai and Toshiro Mifune star in the story of a wandering samurai who exists in a maelstrom of violence. A gifted swordsman — plying his trade during the turbulent final days of Shogunate rule — Ryunosuke (Nakadai) kills without remorse, without mercy. It is a way of life that ultimately leads to madness. The Criterion Collection is proud to present director Kihachi Okamoto's swordplay classic The Sword of Doom, the thrilling tale of a man who chooses to devote his life to evil.

121 minutes
Black & White

Monaural

in Japanese

2:35:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2005

Director/Writers

Based on the novel by Kaizan Nakazato.

Screenplay by Shinobu Hashimoto.

Kihachi Okamoto was 43 when he directed The Sword of Doom.

Other Okamoto films in the Collection:

#313: Kill! (1968)

#679t: Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo (1970)

The Film

Finally released from their obligations to Kurosawa (Red Beard [1965] {Spine #159}) both its stars -- Toshirō Mifune and Yūzō Kayama -- were suddenly available for other projects.

Also known as Dai-bosaatsu Tōge (Great Bodhisattva Pass), the novel was written in the early 20th century, and the original story was serialized in over forty volumes before Nakazato's death.

Previously filmed by Hiroshi Inagaki in two parts (Daibosatsu tôge: dai-ippen-Kôgen itto-ryū no maki [1935] and Daibosatsu tôge: Suzuka-yama no maki-Mibu Shimabara no maki [1936]); Kunio Watanabe in three parts (Daibosatsu tôge: Kôgen ittôryū no maki; Daibosatsu Tôge-Dai-ni-bu: Mibu to Shimabara no maki; Miwa kamisugi no maki; and Daibosatsu Tôge-Dai-ni-bu: Ryūjin no maki; Ai no yama no maki [all 1953]); Tomu Uchida in three parts (Sword in the Moonlight [1957]; Daibosatsu tôge-Dai ni bu [1958]; and Daibosatsu tôge-Kanketsu-hen [1959]); and Kenji Misumi and Kazuo Mori in three parts (Satan's Sword [1960] Satan's Sword II [1960] {Misumi} and Satan's Sword III: The Final Chapter [1961] {Mori}).

Okamoto certainly intended to make a sequel, but it was not to be. The final shot of the film -- a freeze-frame on Ryunosuke (a typically brilliant Tatsuya Nakadai) -- requires us to use our imagination as to what might have followed.

The direction, casting, acting, sets, costumes, music -- all superb. In addition to brilliant performances by Nakadai, Kayama and Mifune, look for great turns by Michiyo Aratama (Ohama), the lovely Yôko Naitô (Omatsu, she was 16!)

Also worthy of mention are three Kurosawa regulars: Kô Nishamura (Shichibei, Omatsu's uncle); the goofy-looking Kunie Tanaka (Senkichi); and the great Kamatari Fujiwara (Omatsu's grandfather).

Film Rating (0-60):

56

The Extras

The Booklet

Eight-page wraparound featuring an essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien.

“Okamoto’s The Sword of Doom is likely to strike the innocent viewer as an exercise in absurdist violence, tracking the career of a nihilistic swordsman from his gratuitous murder of a defenseless old man to his final descent into what looks like a rehearsal for global annihilation, as, in a kind of ecstasy, he slaughters a seemingly endless army of attackers both real and phantasmal. The extreme but stylized violence of Okamoto’s film epitomizes a style of Japanese filmmaking that profoundly influenced such directors as Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone, and it would be easy — and not entirely inaccurate — to read the film in the light of the cynical antiheroic trends that surfaced in genre films all over the world in the 1960s and surmise that it represented the same kind of break with heroic tradition as, say, spaghetti Westerns. It should be kept in mind, however, that The Sword of Doom is only the most recent episode derived from a long line of stage and film versions of an immensely long, structurally meandering novel that has remained popular ever since the appearance of its first installments a year after the death of the Meiji emperor (the ruler who oversaw Japan’s transition from hermetically sealed feudal state to modern industrialized nation) and whose ostensible theme is religious.”

Commentary

None.

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

56 +33 =

89

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