Heavy hangs the pinnacle that wears the crown — or on this case, the samurai topknot — in Kiyoshi Kurosawa‘s absorbing, clean-lined literary adaptation, for which the veteran filmmaker brings to life a storied period of swirling discontent in Japanese history with such evocative restraint that it becomes distinctly modern. And yet this is no work of genre deconstruction, and there’s little of Kurosawa’s acquainted, eerie experimentation with narrative type. As an alternative, ‘Samurai’ is classical, if pared-back, in method — without delay a satisfyingly linked collection of rousing whodunnits, a tricksy sport of psychological cat-and-mouse and a trenchant, typically fairly transferring, exploration of the character of true management, in all its solitude and sacrifice.
The chief right here is Araki Murashige (Masahiro Motoki, excelling in portraying the character’s conflicted charisma) the lord of Arioka Citadel in the course of the Azuchi period on the finish of the sixteenth century. As our story begins, the previously loyal Murashige is in insurrection towards highly effective regional magnate Oda Nobunaga, citing Nobunaga’s cruelty, ruthlessness and thirst for energy as his causes. In response, Nobunaga and his native allies have despatched forces to besiege the fort, which has grow to be a fortress. Inside its geometric courtyards and spartan, tatami-matted interiors, Murashige paces and plots his subsequent transfer, consulting with the leaders of the clans beneath his management and being sometimes comforted by his religious spouse Chiyoho (Yuriko Yoshitaka) whose enmity towards Nobunaga could outmatch even that of her husband.
As a last-ditch try at a diplomatic decision, Oda Nobunaga sends an envoy to Arioka fort. Kuroda Kanbei (Masaki Suda, reuniting with Kurosawa after the 2024 thriller “Cloud”) is a samurai well-known for his intelligence and political crafty, however his arguments as to why Murashige ought to return to the Nobunaga fold fall on deaf ears. Kanbei, rebuffed and prevented from leaving, expects to be put to dying, based on the samurai code, by which messages are despatched and justice distributed on the tip of a sword.
As an alternative Murashige orders him imprisoned within the fort’s dungeon, a transfer that’s half clemency, chiming together with his current adoption of a extra progressive, and really un-samurai, angle towards the worth of human life (“Do not die for me,” he’ll later order one in every of his retainers), but additionally half technique. Murashige is aware of that when phrase that Kanbei lives on will get again to Nobunaga, the rival lord will assume it might probably solely be as a result of Kanbei switched sides, which shall be a helpful propaganda coup. Nearly the entire choices Murashige makes are equally double-edged, just like the dagger wears he tucked into the sash of his kimono.
However then information arrives that one of many lords whose help Murashige was counting on has strayed over to Nobunaga’s aspect, which presents one other dilemma. As was customary in feudal occasions, the defector’s younger son was residing with Murashige as a hostage/honored visitor, and now that his father has deserted his patron, the penalty should be the kid’s dying. However quailing on the prospect of killing an 8-year-old boy (and one to whom the childless Chiyoho has grow to be fairly connected), nonetheless a lot the boy himself begs to thus atone for his father’s betrayal, as a substitute Murashige orders him spared and guarded.
So think about his emotions of impotence and rage when the boy is killed anyway, by an unimaginable arrow that finds its goal via a tiny crack in a door after which, apparently, vanishes. Is that this some form of supernatural payback for Murashige’s rejection of centuries of samurai custom or is there a rational clarification? Unable to make sense of the crime, finally Murashige decides to seek the advice of the intelligent Kanbei, who’s bored down there within the dungeon alone, and grateful for the mental distraction of fixing this puzzle.
It’s winter when all this happens, however earlier than the yr is out, there shall be three extra mysteries, every akin to a successive season. In spring, an enemy’s decapitated head, introduced again as proof of a profitable battle, goes lacking. In summer season, somebody purloins Murashige’s favourite ceramic tea-kettle, which he had supposed to present as a worthwhile reward to seal an alliance. And in autumn a stray bolt of lightning kills a member of the entourage on the precise second he’s about to disclose an vital secret. Every of those enigmatic crimes carries the whiff of divine retribution, which in every case the anti-superstition and non-devout Murashige will search Kanebi’s assist to debunk.
This four-chapter construction and the contained fort with its rooms and courtyards so stripped-down as to seem summary, may give the entire enterprise the texture of a TV present or miniseries. However in an age when Japan-set interval TV literary variations have reached the extent of sophistication of 2024’s “Shogun,” for instance, that’s not essentially a foul factor. DP Yasuyuki Sasaki’s camerawork is trendy and certain and infrequently placing, as within the dungeon that’s lit by shafts of sunshine that slice via the cracks within the partitions like laser beams. And Koichi Takahashi’s enhancing retains issues ebbing and flowing inside every single part but additionally finds methods for every to construct on and enlarge the one which got here earlier than.
However principally the watchword within the craft design is simplicity, like Kurosawa is making ready a magic trick and exhibiting us, look! No hidden accomplices or secret trapdoors. And it helps to have an uncluttered stage, when the plot is so baroque and the (routinely wonderful) forged of clan chiefs and nobles and advisers and trusty retainers is so quite a few. Don’t fear — they get fewer on a regular basis: Followers of Genki Kawamura’s “Exit 8,” for instance, shall be glad to see Kochi Yamato, after his breakout because the creepily smiling Strolling Man within the 2025 videogame adaptation, however they’re additionally pretty warned to not get too connected to him.
The identical could possibly be stated for roughly half the populous however well-differentiated forged. Because the seasons cross, the fort ranks are thinned by defection or dying, and more and more it looks like Murashige’s solely actual buddy is the enemy he threw in jail a yr in the past. Kanbei is locked up however in some ways freer than a weighed-down Murashige, together with his proscribed roles and duties and his conflicted loyalty to a code he now not believes in. Kurosawa’s extremely entertaining adaptation is aware of that simply since you are chained doesn’t make you a prisoner, any greater than having wealth and energy can reliably make you free.
