Overview: Best known for dramas such as Until We Meet Again and An Inlet of Muddy Water, the Japanese filmmaker Tadashi Imai was also the director of Revenge, a highly accomplished and brutal jidaigeki picture. These two sensibilities come together in the film that might just stand as Imai’s masterpiece: Cruel Tale of Bushido.

Kinnosuke Nakamura (Miyamoto Musashi) stars in multiple roles, playing seven generations of men belonging to the same family. In the modern day, salary man Iikura is devastated by his wife’s attempted suicide. To distract himself, he begins working through his recently discovered family records. As he traces his personal history across 350 years, he discovers tale after tale of men who have suffered, debased themselves and made untold sacrifices in the name of bushido, or the moral code of the samurai.

Featuring Eijiro Tono (Seven Samurai) and Masayuki Mori (Rashomon) in supporting roles and boasting a foreboding score by the celebrated composer Toshiro Mayuzumi, Cruel Tale of Bushido won the Golden Bear Award at the 1963 Berlin Film Festival for its uncompromising deconstruction of the all-too-often romanticized concept of bushido. The Masters of Cinema series is honored to present the film on Blu-ray for the first time in the US.

Blu-ray Verdict: In truth, this is more like a series of stories that follow the sacrifices made by members of a Japanese clan from the 1600s to the present (1963) as they serve masters ranging from feudal lords in the Tokugawa period to the Imperial Government to the modern company.

Many of the early stories are brutal, as cruel, capricious, and sometimes sadistic lords expect every their every whim to be catered to without reservation, and there is a pronounced sexual subtext throughout, as many of the demands involve the servitors’ wives, fiancées or daughters. The morality of the stories is complex.

From a modern perspective, the lords’ demands are unconscionable, almost evil at times, and the obedience and self-abasement of the underlings hard to comprehend (viewers waiting for righteous comeuppances may be disappointed), but values were different and many of the characters seem to believe that the absolute authority of superiors over their inferiors was expected and acceptable, and that acquiescence to such demands was both honorable and a privilege.

The cast is very good and Kinnosuke Nakamura is just excellent playing the central character from each period. Some budgetary restrictions are evident (notably in the brief Kamikaze vignette) but otherwise the production values, including the score, are spot on. As my friend who was watching this new Blu-ray with me also concurred, the film is too short to do justice to all of the stories but otherwise is an excellent counter-point to the numerous jidaigeki that glorify feudal Japan (or, at least, reduce the period and its culture to a simple good vs. bad background for a sword-opera). [J.R.]

BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS:
Limited edition O-card slipcase featuring new artwork by Tony Stella
Limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Japanese cinema expert Hayley Scanlon
1080p HD presentation from a 4K restoration by Toei
Original Japanese mono audio
Optional DTS-HD MA 5,1 audio
Optional English subtitles, newly revised for this release
Telling a Cruel Tale – new interview with film critic Tony Rayns
Years of Honour – new video essay on Cruel Tale of Bushido and Japanese history by Jonathan Clements, author of A Brief History of Japan
Trailer

Official Purchase Link

www.eurekavideo.co.uk