The Hidden Blade Review
What follows is an updated version of our earlier review of Yoji Yamada's Hidden Blade, with information regarding the new Tartan Films DVD release added.
In many ways Yoji Yamada’s Hidden Blade is the lost fraternal twin of his previous Twilight Samurai. It’s not an exact copy but the two films are unmistakably related, and closely. The basic story arc and visual style of The Hidden Blade mirrors Twilight Samurai nearly enough that Yamada’s latest suffers some by familiarity – anyone who has seen Twilight Samurai will know exactly how this film plays out within the first ten minutes or so – but he executes things so well that you certainly can’t fault him for returning to familiar ground. Had it released before Twilight Samurai this film would have received the same level of acclaim as Yamada’s prior work, coming afterwards it is merely another stellar entry into his canon of films.
Yamada’s films are most often labeled samurai films which, though technically true, may raise some false expectations. Yamada makes period dramas, the most famous of which just happen to be set at the end of the samurai period. If you’re looking for up-tempo samurai action you will not get it here, what the writer-director is more interested in is exploring the people of the times and their responses to shifting social and cultural boundaries. Yamada combines character study with social critique and he does a damn fine job of it. But for the blood thirsty, yes, there is just a bit of samurai action at the end.
The Hidden Blade stars Masatoshi Nagase as Munezo Katagiri, a low level samurai in a remote prefecture whose family has fallen on somewhat hard times after his father was forced to commit hara-kiri after the failure of a project he was supervising. We are quickly introduced to Katagiri’s family and friends: a fellow samurai and former class mate being sent to a high profile post in Edo, his future brother in law, his younger sister, and the servant girl Kie who he clearly holds more than an employer’s interest in – an interest he can never follow through on due to the pair being of different castes.
The plot of the story falls into two neat halves. In the first half Kie is married into an abusive merchant family only to be rescued and nursed back to health by Katagiri. Kie shows her gratitude and devotion by remaining in Katagiri’s home and resuming her duties as a servant, saying she has learned her lesson and will never marry again. In the second half of the film Katagiri’s friend is sent home from Edo and imprisoned for his part in a plot against the Shogunate. When he escapes Katagiri is chosen to hunt him down and fight a duel to the death.
The plot, solid as it is, is almost incidental to the film, however. What really matters is what’s lying beneath the surface: the tension of the caste system, the corruption of the old order, the tension and conflict that met westernization, and the futility of violence. As with the Twilight Samurai Yamada has here created a masterpiece of suppressed love. Katagiri and Kie are clearly devoted to one another but social pressure absolutely forbids them from doing anything about it. As was also the case in The Twilight Samurai we here look at a Japan in transition, the tail end of the samurai tradition, and though the change seems inevitable it certainly does not arrive without a degree of sadness.
Yamada is clearly a master of this sort of film making, crafting works filled with subtlety and grace and lush period detail. He chooses themes that are distinctively Japanese but also have universal appeal. The entire cast is strong with the lead actors, in particular, conveying volumes through half glances and body language. A sly humor is built into the military training sequences – the frustrated military instructor railing against the ‘back-country samurai’ he has to teach western tactics to hits both in the humor and social commentary departments.
Freshly available in North America via Tartan Films – distributed here in our cold northern land by Paradox Entertainment – the domestic release is adequate but not exceptional, several elements showing a surprising lack of care. The booklet, for example, labels the film as part of the Asian Extreme series – a ludicrous notion for a film as measured and restrained as this – while the cover does not and the included essay, while a good source of background information, features some obvious typos and sloppy editing. The menu system is, ahem, less than attractive and shockingly low resolution – very grainy with obvious pixilation. Details always matter but especially so with a film like this and a surprising number of them have been missed putting the package together.
Thankfully the contents are better. The transfer is a little soft but clean and anamorphic and the audio comes in Japanese DTS and 5.1 varieties with subtitles offered in both English and Spanish. The special features include trailers, a six minute press conference shot when director Yoji Yamada was awarded as a Person of Cultural Merit, an eight minute reel from the film’s premiere at the Berlin Film Festival and a sixteen minute behind the scenes feature which, very appropriately, focuses on the film’s attention to period detail.
