There's goings-on in Awa. A beautiful lady Koga ninja is looking for revenge. Another beautiful lady is looking for her father. A brilliant samurai is wearing a wicker helmet like a wastepaper basket that conceals his identity. He claims to be a monk, but acts like a spy. The chamberlain is planning rebellion again the shogun, while his master, supposedly in charge of the rebellion, sleeps a lot, and then practices his victory dance. The chamberlain's son is mostly interested in trying out his fancy new somersault maneuver to chop people in half. As the movie advances, an unseen character becomes central to all their issues. He is a prisoner somewhere in a cave. His name is Koga Yoama.
Teinosuke Kinugasa directs a beautifully shot color epic with some major stars of the era: Chikage Awashima, Kazuo Hasegawa, Raizô Ichikawa are in the cast, and others. Yet the deliberate mystery of what the heck is going on at the beginning is off-putting. If we assume that samurai movies in Japan held the same thrall on the public as westerns in the United States, then this is definitely an A Samurai picture. Yet just as there were A westerns and B westerns -- and if you wanted to push it you could call some of the Monogram and PRC efforts C or even D westerns -- then clearly there were levels of excellence in Samurai pictures, determining their budget, publicity and popularity. In the US, a John Ford western, or the occasional westerns of William Wyler or Howard Hawks were great pictures, just like the samurai flicks of Kurosawa or Mizoguchi. Then there were A westerns, like THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON or some of the Paramount color flicks in the 1950s, followed by the stuff for the Saturday Matinee crowd: Tim Holt, or Red Ryder or Hopalong Cassidy. good stuff at its best, fun for the fans, and cinematic junk food.
This movie strikes me as an A Samurai picture. It clearly had a major budget, major stars, major director, great sets and everything that indicated it would play at the major houses for a while. Yet it lacks so much. It lacks humor. It lacks any sense of nobility. It has a plot cobbled together from pieces enough for four or five different movies, to make sure that there's something for everyone. Bring the whole family! Yet that makes it lose focus. Who is it about? What is it about? What is accomplished?
It's watchable from beginning to end. With that talent and budget, that's hardly surprising. Int he end, it's an entertaining show. Unfortunately, in the end, it's nothing more.
