a middle-aged man in a career crisis, who happens to be a samurai
Author: Steve Schonberger from near Seattle, WA, USA
29 May 2000
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Ihei Misawa, played by Akira Terao, is a samurai. He is a great warrior, but now that the civil wars are over, he finds himself looking for a place for himself in the world. He and his wife Tayo (Yoshiko Miyazaki) are traveling, looking for a better place for themselves, but they're stranded at a small inn by a flooded river. While waiting for the rain to stop, and the river to go down enough to allow crossing, he tries to help entertain the others at the inn, who are mostly poor. The rain finally stops, and he goes for a walk in the woods, and breaks up a fight between a bunch of rowdy young men. That brings him to the attention of a local lord, who considers him for a job in his castle. That's about as much as I can say about the plot without risking spoilers.
While Ihei Misawa is a samurai, he's also a middle-aged man in a career crisis. What does a samurai do with himself when the wars have ended? He looks for a new career where his skills are still useful. His crisis is just like that of a laid-off worker of today, except for the line of work itself. The local lord, played by Shiro Mifune, also has problems that are still faced by modern people -- many of the people who work for him are incompetent or tiresome. The movie does a great job of telling a story that applies to a modern audience, even though it's set 300 years in the past.Interestingly, although the movie has conflict, it has no major villain characters. (The rivals are all bit parts.) All of the central characters are basically good people. That's a refreshing outlook.
The movie was written by Akira Kurosawa before he died, and directed by his assistant director of 28 years, Takashi Koizumi, with most of the same regular crew. One of the supporting actors is Shiro Mifune, son of Toshirô Mifune, who starred in many of Kurosawa's movies. So in many ways it's a Kurosawa movie, and there's a substantial dedication to Kurosawa at the beginning of the film.I saw the movie at a Seattle International Film Festival screening, and director appeared in person. Through an interpreter, he said that Kurosawa's son had persuaded him to direct the movie, with the support of many others who had worked with Kurosawa. He also said that he "asked and forced" the Akira Terao to star.
