Araki mataemon biography sample

Not to be confused with the same director’s Samurai Vendetta, this is one of those near masterpieces that somehow slipped through the cracks. Fortunately, Criterion picked it up, probably because of Toshiro Mifune’s presence and Kurosawa’s name on the script, but even with that lineage, it has received little attention in either Japan or America since its original release.

The movie deals with a famous fight in Japanese history, but takes an entirely original, and in many ways still unique, approach. After a typically overwrought chanbara opening in which Mifune takes on two great swordsmen and more than 30 of their followers, it asks: Wouldn’t the real story be more interesting?

We then visit the modern village, where there are still memorials to the famous fight, and at last jump back to 1634, where we see Mifune and three others arriving in the village to wait for the arrival of their prey.

Matagoro has murdered the brother of Kazuma. Mataemon (Mifune), as the brother-in-law of Kazuma, is obligated to join him in an attempt at revenge. The movie follows approximately an hour before the fight plus the fight itself, told in a real-time presentation, interrupted by some flashbacks to e

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