I've long known that Samurai movies have a long history in Japan -- one of the Lumiere actualities from 1898 is ACTEURS JAPONAIS: BATAILLE AU SABRE. However this movie is the earliest full-fledged Samurai feature I've seen. In it, Tsumasaburô Bandô is a young samurai with ideals and a short temper. He develops a reputation as a bully and gets kicked out of his position for trying to defend the reputation of his calligraphy master's daughter -- no one will listen to his explanations. He takes to the road as a ronin and falls in with bad companions, always wondering why no one will see the good heart beneath his fearsome reputation.
This movie is offered as a tragedy of society's failure (the version I watched had a simultaneous Japanese and Russian audio track that made me think it must have done well in Soviet Russia as an indictment of Pre-Revolutionary society). I thought it was an indictment of people who failed to show a little forethought in their actions; if Our Hero (as the narrator referred to him) had shown a little discretion, he might have done a lot better for himself.
Nonetheless, one watches westerns for the riding and the gunplay, and one watches Samurai movies fo the fight scenes, and there are some fine ones here, particularly the big finale. Although my cynical take on Our Hero rendered many serious sections comic, this is well worth watching as an early example of the genre.
