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What do you get when you combine Sonny
Chiba, Toshiro Mifune, Etsuko Shiomi, Henry Sanada and Kinji Fukasaku? A
damn good movie, that’s what. And that’s exactly what 1978’s The
Shogun’s Samurai (also known as The Yagyu Conspiracy
and not to be confused with Norifumi’s fun but vastly inferior Shogun’s
Ninja) truly is.
In this period samurai film, the
second Shogun of Tokugawa has died without warning. This sends things into
a little bit of disarray and the Shogun’s two sons, Lemitsu () and
Tadanaga, commence a small-scale civil war against each other to decide
who will be the late Shogun’s successor. To further complicate matters,
a group of noblemen are trying to take the power and control back from the
Shogun’s family and give it to the Emperor, who they feel is more justly
deserving of it.
Yagyu Tajima (Kinnosuke Nakamura), a
former instructor to the late Shogun’s son in the art of sword fighting,
stands alongside Lemitsu as he is the oldest of the two sons and in
Yagyu’s eyes, more fit to lead. Yagyu’s son Jubei (Sonny Chiba),
however, has different plans for the way that things should work out, and
finds himself on the opposite side of the battlefield than his father.
Tadanaga, on the other hand, aligns
himself with a powerful nobleman, the Lord Owari (Toshiro Mifune) and also
earns his mother’s support. When they fail to prove conclusively that
the Shogun fell victim to foul play, they leave the castle. This sets into
play the Emperor’s plan to play both of the brothers off against each
other in a power struggle that sets into motion a whole lot of ugliness
between the two siblings and those surrounding them.
Throw some ninjas into the mix, some
fantastic scenes of combat and swordplay, as well as a whole lot of very
pretty sets and you’ve got, as I said, a damn good movie. Fukasaku
handles the action scenes wonderfully as always though avoids a lot of the
handheld ‘shaky cam’ technique that he used so expertly in his earlier
Yakuza films and again later in his swansong, Battle Royale.
There’s a lot more to the movie than
sword swinging bad asses though. Fukasaku keeps things really tense,
especially towards the last third of the film at which point you realize
exactly where things are heading and how they’re going to end, but never
the less need to sit it out and see for yourself just precisely how the
director is going to handle it.
Performances are strong all the way
around (and looking at the cast list for this movie – A list talent all
around – that’s more or less a given) though Chiba and Nakamura really
do steal the show. Those expecting an eyeball popping testicle ripping
performance from Sonny will instead find a more subtle, refined screen
presence but one that is no less effective than his ‘bad man from
Japan’ persona that we all know and deeply, truly love.
Despite
the fact that some of the historical inaccuracies are quite glaring in
terms of what happens and when, the film delivers on pretty much every
level. It’s suspenseful, it’s surprising despite the gut feeling that
you know how it’s going to end about two thirds of the way through,
it’s expertly acted and the whole thing just looks absolutely gorgeous
from start to finish. It is, in short, a damn good movie.
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