THE HIDDEN BLADE
Japan, 2004, 130 minutes, Colour.
Masatoshi Nagase, Takako Matsu.
Directed by Yoji Yamada.
The Hidden Blade is an impressive historical Japanese film. While it has aspects of martial arts and samurai films, the main characters being involved in samurai activity, the film is far more complex. The film focuses on a young man who grows up with samurai, goes to take up a position in a shogunate. While he trains in skills, his family at home suffers a great deal, and the farmhand girl, who has been a maid in the house, has been married off and suffers brutal treatment by her husband. The young hero returns to defend her. His friends take part in political uprisings and are imprisoned.
The young man is framed for complicity in the intrigue and has to confront his friends – especially with the skills he has been taught by a master of the hidden blade.
The film is beautiful to look at, has strong stunts and special effects work. However, ultimately it is the humanity of the story and of the characters that make the most impression.
The film was directed by Yoji Yamada who was responsible for the Oscar nominee, The Twilight Samurai. The third film in his samurai trilogy is Love and Honour (2006).
1. The tradition of the samurai epic? This film at the beginning of the 21st century, looking back at the 18th and 19th centuries? Beauty, grandeur? Change?
2. The atmosphere of the 19th century, the town, the river, the countryside? The isolation of Japan, the opening up of Japan to foreign powers, artillery and guns? The end of the era of the sword?
3. The West, the tradition of seven hundred years of closure from the West? Japan and its patriarchal traditions, the elders? The good and the bad of the traditions?
4. The opening of the film, the setting, the farewell and the prediction? The ironies of what happened? The ending?
5. The samurai and his home, his sister, her suitor, his mother? The detail of life in the village? Kei and her place as the servant? The status of the samurai family, its servants? The passing of the years, the death of the mother, the marriage of the sister?
6. The character of Kei, a good person, her love for the samurai, her reticence, illness? Her marriage, the mother-in-law and the savage treatment, her being left ill and to die? The samurai coming, his confrontation of the mother and her son, the weakness of the son, his taking Kei, her recovering? Her return to work?
7. The sequences of training, the demonstrations? The samurai soldiers and their inability to work with guns? The sequences with the cannon, the humour and seriousness of having to handle such large artillery?
8. The role of the elders, their decisions about the guns, the traditions of the swords? The samurai and his work?
9. The uprising, Hazema in prison? The authorities, his wife? The fight, the hidden blade, the technique, the use of guns? The samurai and his devotion to his friend despite his betrayal? His friend’s wife and her being abused by the authorities?
10. The revenge, the samurai and his use of the hidden blade?
11. The wife of the imprisoned man, the elders and their sexual abuse, their deaths?
12. The change in the samurai, his going back to his family, seeking out Kei, the proposal? Their future?
13. The portrait of a period, the transitions of the late 19th century? The samurai and their having to become townsmen and farmers? The change of status? The future of Japan – and the ironies that within sixty years World War Two would have broken out, the Japanese military traditions, the use of western weapons, the irony of the bombing of Hiroshima?
