#Chojuro Karawasaki

[byneddiedingo]

Chojuro Kwarasaki in The 47 Ronin (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1941)

Cast: Chojuro Kawarasaki, Kanemon Nakamura, Kunitarō Kawarazaki, Choemon Bando, Sukezo Sukedakaya, Kikunojo Segawa, Utaemon Ichikawa, Yoshizaburo Arashi, Mitsuko Miura, Mieko Takamine. Screenplay: Kenichiro Hara, Yoshikata Yoda, based on a play by Seika Miyama. Cinematography: Kohei Sugiyama. Production design: Hiroshi Mizutani. Film editing: Takako Kuji. Music: Shiro Fukai.  A stately samurai film, with no action except the initial attack on one feudal lord by another and a later moment of brief swordplay, The 47 Ronin has a staginess to it that betrays its origin in a play by Seika Mayama. But that staginess is Shakespearean in essence: It's a tragedy in which the central character, Kuranosuke Oishi (Chojuro Kawarasaki), is, like Hamlet, a man tormented by delay. Director Kenji Mizoguchi's mastery of pace and tension -- i.e., the pace is slow, but the tension is high -- can keep one riveted to the screen. The opening scene consists of a long, slow pan around the courtyard of a Japanese castle, where groups of men are kneeling in expectation of something. Then a quarrel breaks out between Lord Kira (Kazutoyo Mimasui) and Lord Asano (Yoshizaburo Arashi). Asano draws his sword, and attacks Kira, causing a commotion. It's a fictionalizing of what's known as the Ako incident in Japanese history. Asano is ordered to commit seppuku, whereas Kira, who provoked him and survived, goes free. Moreover, Asano's lands are confiscated and his samurai are now masterless -- i.e., ronin. It falls to the ranking member of the Asano household, Oishi, to lead the ronin in taking revenge on Kira not only for provoking the attack but also to protest unequal justice. But Oishi has a dilemma: There has been a petition for reinstatement of the Asano household, and if it's successful, it would rob them of their justification for killing Kira, so any attack on him would have to be well-timed. Eventually, the attack succeeds, but at a high price: the 47 ronin who break into Kira's castle and kill him are honor-bound to follow an edict that they must now all commit seppuku. And so it ends, but not without an interpolated romantic incident that seems to come out of the Hollywood playbook, though with another Shakespearean twist. A young woman disguised as a man (Mieko Takamine) comes to where the condemned ronin are awaiting their end. She and one of the ronin, Isogai (Kunitaro Kawarazaki), had fallen in love and were about to be married just before the assassination of Kira took place. Just before he is about to die, she commits seppuku herself. It's a tribute to the tone maintained throughout the film by Mizoguchi that this touch of melodrama feels integral, more Shakespearean than Hollywood.