hiroshi inagaki and samurai banners

Hiroshi Inagaki and Samurai Banners (1969)

Hiroshi Inagaki is a name that needs to be shouted from more mountain

tops. Sadly, his filmology is inadequately accessible in the U.S. Both

Wagstaff and I have already sung his praises over the Samurai Trilogy

(1954-6), which represents half of what is available on DVD under

Inagaki's name and stands besides The Seven Samurai as an early

perfection of form. The other films, Chushingura (1962), Samurai

Banners (1969) and, Incident at Bloodpass, are all exciting fresh

films in their own rights.

What is not available from his filmology is a laundry list of great

sounding titles that hopefully have some availability in Japan and

perhaps subsequently in the U.S. Inagaki started directing for Toho in

his early twenties around 1928. Throughout the 30s and 40s he did

numerous period film trilogies including a previous series about

Musashi in 1940-2. Other intriguing titles include: Last Days of Edo

(1941) - perhaps an early disaster film?; Signal Fires of Shanghai

(1944) - pertaining to the occupation?; Pirate Ship (1951) - with

Toshiro Mifune, this sounds like prime action fodder; Conclusion of

Kojiro Sasaki: Duel on Ganryu Island (1951) - this film seems to be

part 3 of the Musashi story but as a stand alone (with Mifune playing

Musashi); Vagabonds in a Country at War (1952) - sounds like a war

film with two love triangles...or would that be a love hexagon?; etc.

After the Samurai Trilogy, Inagaki made a two film series called (and

I paraphrase) the Secret Yagyu Scrolls (1957-8), again with Mifune. No

doubt, this series has some good ninja action. Inagaki went on to make

dozens more samurai films, a good piece with Mifune, before we get to

the charted end of his career: Samurai Banners and Incident at

Bloodpass.

Let's focus on Samurai Banners. This is a large complex story about a

peripheral civil war following the Gempei War and the period of

unification that ultimately leads to major unification figures like

Nobunaga Obu and Ieyasu Tokugawa. This is not a beer movie - and there

are plenty of expositive titles and dates and battle maps and like

stuff as you would find in films like Midway or Battle of the Bulge.

It is artfully and clearly done and should not intimidate the casual

viewer. Just be forewarned that it is, in part, a history lesson as

well as a compelling character study of its central figure, Kansuke

Yamamoto (Toshiro Mifune).

Kansuke is a brilliant strategic thinker - coldly calculating,

ruthless, deceitful and fiercely loyal to his vision. The film makes

no apologies or fronts for Kansukes treachery, nor does it take away

from his majesty. When he is first introduced in the film, he is in

the process of a well thought out but cruel double-cross that leads

him down the road towards becoming Lord Takeda's main strategy man. As

Lord Takeda describes him, with a thankful smirk playing across his

mouth, Kansuke is a "terrifying man." On the one hand he's the best

strategist you have and you are glad he is on your side, on the other

hand, his cruelty is an uneasy method to that very success.

In the west, such a dichotomy is something for a film to fret over,

but this film leaves the fretting to the audience and shows us

everything including his humility, loyalty and compassion without

apologies or condemnation. And that goes for the other characters as

well. Key figures are shown doing horrible things or having tragic

things happen to them that would surely paint their characters

entirely in other films, but here those things merely mark a certain

passage of time - being baggage they carry throughout, but also a

episode that they managed to overcome or get beyond. By the end of the

film, characters you thought you would hate because of earlier crimes,

you find yourself admiring in light of their virtues and vices.

And yet, as I mentioned, it is an epic movie about one domain

expanding its reach over neighboring domains in an effort to become a

unifying national power. The domain in question is Kai, and it is

ruled by the Takeda Clan. We are not sure of Kansuke's origins, though

he seems to be a ronin of some sort, but we know how he infiltrates

the ranks of the House of Takeda and we see him vow to make "Lord

Takeda of Kai, the mightiest Lord in the nation." What we don't yet

know is that he is playing a multi-dimensional game of long-term chess

that is light years ahead of his adversaries. Events are happening

outside of Kai. The Princess Nene, wife to Lord Harunobu of Suwa, but

of Takeda lineage, was a key political tie between the two domains

(Kai and Suwa). But she died and now Kai is facing the threat that

Suwa may ally itself with Lord Murakami of Northern

Shinano...something that jeopardizes Kai's security. As one adviser

describes the situation with Kai's other neighbors:

"Lord Hojo of Odawara.....and Lord Imagawa of Suruga....these two are

not only related to you [Lord Takeda], they're bound to you by

treaties. Lord Saito Dosan of Mino is blocked by these treacherous

mountains...so, obviously he won't be able to move east toward us.

East, west and south....if those three directions pose no

threat...then we'll strike North [Suwa]...This is our only chance to

attack Suwa in Shinano."

So Lord Takeda amasses an army of 20,000 and leads it into Suwa and

prepares to attack Takashima Castle. Until Kansuke persuades Lord

Takeda to negotiate a generous surrender, thus reaffirming ties with

Suwa. But, though accepting the surrender, Lord Harunobu of Suwa does

not necessarily intend to stay shackled to Kai. In a pandering show of

friendship and familial bonds (through the deceased Princess Nene),

Harunobu visits Lord Takeda of Kai three times in a month. This makes

Lord Takeda and Kansuke uneasy and as a result, Lord Harunobu will not

return from his third visit. Kansuke, believing the frequent visits

from Harunobu are to obligate a return visit from Lord Takeda, where

Takeda will be vulnerable to assassination, urges Takeda to

pre-emptively assassinate Harunobu. After Lord Harunobu is killed,

Suwa eventually takes Takashima Castle. Through a stroke of fortune,

Princess Yu, Lord Harunobu's father, is captured by Kansuke's men.

Kansuke loves her but is forced by Lord Takeda to hand her over to be

his lord's concubine, a particularly humiliating circumstance given

that Takeda pretty wiped out the rest of her family. However, there is

a silver lining to the misfortune and Kansuke urges Princess Yu to

provide an heir for Takeda, thus cementing the bond between Suwa and

Kai and ensuring that that her family's blood endures. That all

happens in the first hour - the story continues to develop in the

remaining 100 minutes.

The new young prince, Katsuyori Takeda, is the figure you would most

likely run across in a general history of Japan. He was part of the

opposition to Oda Nobunaga's unification efforts in the latter part of

the 16th century. Nobunaga eventually defeated and executed Katsuyori.

Katsuyori's death would mark the end of the Takeda Clan in its 28th

generation. But the film takes place several decades before that, when

the Takeda Clan gained control of the four domains it would have when

it threatened Nobunaga and Ieyasu Tokugawa. Thus, this grand epic is

but a supporting subplot in a larger event of Japanese history.

Mifune's performance is stellar as always. How he can sit cross legged

on a tatami floor wearing a kimono and yet look completely different

from role to role is beyond me. In this film, he sports a gimp leg and

a nasty crescent shaped scar on his face. Though crippled, he is

nevertheless deadly and menacing. He wears a shiny black helmet with

horns that makes him look half hero, half Darth Lord. When he holds up

the newborn Katsuyori and declares his complete devotion, he is scary

in that he is so intense that he may harm the newborn, and yet, he is

comforting because you know that kid will be under Kansuke's able

protection. Inagaki's direction is also markedly different than his

other available movies might suggest. He shows that he is perfectly at

home with wide screen compositions. Inagaki is a frequent user of slow

unobtrusive tracking shots that pack a lot of information into single

frames in a very fluid manner. And yet, he can provide a jarring shot

meant to wow the audience. There is a particularly impressive, if

somewhat jerky, shot of an army of 22,000 moving from a village

through the mountains. Inagaki must have shot this from a plane and

then slowed it down - as opposed to shooting it from a helicopter. But

whatever the method, it superbly captures the moment and scene in an

omniscient manner that has more direct parallels in other mediums

outside film, like a large diorama or one of those magnificent

cylcoramas you would see at Gettysburg, where the viewer can see

everything in scope and detail in a collapsed space of time. This

isn't a bird's eye view so much as a deity's eye view. It is through

shots like this that Inagaki manages to balance a riveting personal

story with the broad scope of the story. Often, in other similar

epics, the personal stories feel tacked on as "color" for the dry

facts of the events - but here, the personal story drives the larger

events. The two are one. Certainly, other great and even better films

do this as well, but I say it here and about this movie, Samurai

Banners, to inform the reader that it is a film of considerable

accomplishment.

The score is also excellent. It is so western at times that you wonder

if it is a western. It is the kind of energetic and charging

orchestral sound track that is needed to carry such a long film. It

will get pleasantly stuck in your head the next day. And low and

behold, the film has an intermission. Most films should never even

think about running over two hours long - but for the epic, you might

as well go as long as it takes to finish the job. And when you exceed

two and a half hours, at least have the decency to include an

intermission. Structure the movie so that the audience can get their

second wind. Samurai Banners honors this "way".