New York Asian Film Festival 2024 (July 12-22 FLC) REVIEWS

[Chris Knipp]

TSUYOSHI KUSANAGI IN BUSHIDO

KAZUYA SHIRAISHI: BUSHIDO (2023)

A shamed samurai regains his honor

We've previously reviewed two other Kazuya Shiraishi films: a Silence of the Lambs- style serial killer tale, Lesson in Murder (NYAFF 2022) and before that a yakuza movie, The Blood of Wolves (NYAFF 2018). This is Shiraishi's first foray into a full-on jidaigeki period samurai drama, and, let Mark Schilling of The Japan Times say it, this is a "lovingly conceived and meticulously executed throwback that revitalizes the genre."

Perhaps not for everyone, because if your memories of the ancient board game of Go, central here, are like mine, you may find its function a little alienating. Or just incomprehensible. I was not good at chess, and when friends in college who were, took up Go, that was even more mystifying. Instead of kings, queens, knights, pawns, rooks, etc., there are just black and white stones, one places on a board covered with a fine network of lines. I could never understand how white stones could be used to trap or "kill" black ones and vice versa. Experts see all the complexities at a glance, which is what happens here.

Except men wear samurai swords here, and losers of a game may get their head chopped off. At a climactic moment (spoiler alert) a magnanimous protagonist chooses to forgive the two men who have lost a wager and, instead of chopping off both their heads, he brings down his sword and chops the Go board in half, a dramatic effect, if a gesture not good for the sword and terrible for the thick, handsome board. In fact the Japanese title "Gobangiri" actually means "Go board cutting, so if this is silly, it's nonetheless important.

This film is about honor, shame, contest, and forgiveness. Go boredom and occasional excesses aside, its image of the period is intense, restrained, and beautiful. Nothing here is not aesthetically pleasing and photogenic; it almost makes one wish Japan had never moved into the modern world, things looked so great back then. The protagonist is a shamed, impoverished samurai, Kakunoshin Yanagida (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi), who lives in a tenement with his daughter Kinu (Kaya Kiyohara), who is threatened with resorting to prostitution if 50 ryo gold pieces that disappeared while the hero was playing Go with the aging, amiable businessman Genbei Yorozuya (Jun Kunimura) aren't found again in time. It's a complicated plot, that doesn't matter very much. What counts is the stately pace and the suspense. And there is a very scrappy sword battle toward the end.

"Sir" Yanagida is reduced to working as an appraiser, and is also expert at Go. He's a man who knows how to distinguish genuine objects from sham ones. He doesn't seem to be quite so good at protecting the honor of his daughter. He is not an altogether appealing protagonist and appears a bit of a snob, as well as eaten up by (justifiable) resentment. Watch this, patiently, for the period settings and costumes and the splendid low-light sequences toward the end reminding one, Schilling reminds us, of Kubrick's tour-de-force candlelit images in Barry Lyndon.

After Yanagida has resolved the matter of the lost 50 ryu, he disappears in search of the wrongdoers who ruined his reputation years ago by accusing him of the theft of a manuscript that he did not steal, causing his dishonor and his wife to drown herself in Lake Biwa (we see her gracefully walk out into the lake; typically for this film, Shirashi makes this seem a beautiful way to go). Yanagida finds his sworn enemy (Takumi Saitoh), a fellow clan samurai who made the false accusation, and, as Schilling says, "the swords come out."

Once again Shiraishi has delivered a handsome exercise in genre, the handsomest yet. That this could have been tightened up, by eliminating some of the Go footage and simplifying the plot, is obvious, but it's a splendid looking film.

Bushido 碁盤斬り ("Gobangiri,""Go Board Cutting") , 129 mins., debuted May 1, 2024 at the Far East Festival in Udine, Italy. Screened as part of the 23rd New York Asian Film Festival (Jul 12-28, 2024), showing Tuesday Jul 23, 8:15pm (Beatrice Theatre, SVA Theatre)
Intro and Q&A with director Kazuya Shiraishi