In reviewing Gosha Hideo's first movie, Sanbiki no samurai (Three Outlaw Samurai, 1964), I said that its protagonist played by Hira Mikijiro was the kind of part the great Nakadai Tatsuya often played. Gosha got Nakadai to star in his next movie, Kedamono no ken (Sword of the Beast, 1965), as well as in two 1969 samurai movies, "Hitokiri" (which is, alas, not available here) and "Goyokin" (the DVD retains the Japanese title, which means "treasure"; it has also been called "The Official Gold" and "The Steel Edge of Revenge," both of which are apt). (Nakadai also starred in Gosha's (1979) "Yami no karyudo" (Hunter in the Dark), which is also not on DVD, alas.)

Nakadai was almost always intense in samurai roles (the one in which he is most relaxed is Kiru (Kill!) and in modern ones. He was very tall for Japanese of his generation (six feet), capable of growing a thick beard, had very large eyes, and often suffered to attempt to save others. In "Goyokin," as in The Human Condition trilogy which also ends in the snow), he is bound and hung up (which makes him relent from his commitments not at all). And he is almost as battered before the final duel as he was in "Kill!".

The movie opens seeming to be a horror movie, dominated by menacing crows, as a young woman, Oriha (Ruriko Asaoka) finds everyone in her natal village of Kurosaki missing or dead.

I guess that relating anything after that might be considered
plot spoiling,
so those preoccupied with that should skip to "end plot spoiler alert."

The chief retainer of the Sanabai clan, Rukogo Tatewaki (Tamba Tetsuro, the villain in "You Only Live Twice" and in many other movies) has switched the bonfires that war ships to the promontory that will lure them onto the rocks. He seizes a shipment of gold and silver (the goyokin of the title) and slaughters all of the inhabitants of the fishing village (Kurosaki). His lieutenant, best friend since childhood, and brother-in-law Magobei Rukogo(Nakadai) is appalled. He leaves the province, takes to drink, and nearly sells his sword before he learns that is going to repeat the venture/slaughter and break his promise never to do it again.

Along the way back to Sanabai, Rukogo meets (and twice saves) Oriha, who has become a crapshooter (I don't know what the Japanese for that role is). She and her confederate/brother are grateful and, with a spy pretending to be a money-crazed ronin, Samon Fujimaki (Nakamura Kinnosuke, who replaced Mifune Toshiro, who fell ill during shooting).

End Spoiler Alert

The set-up is too slow for me (roughly the first hour), but the pay-off (the last hour) more than redeems it. Although it is not snowing, there is a lot of snow on the ground for the final confrontation between Magobei and Rokugo. (The final match between master swordsman is a staple of the genre. the one between Nakadai and Mifune at the end of Samurai Rebellion is the one that inspires the most awe from me (though the one at the end of "Kill" is the most creative). For color cinematography of a snowy duel sight, House of Flying Daggers, is the best; another crucial aspect of the one in "House" was also present in "Goyokin."

To say that Nakadai was intense is, for anyone familiar with Japanese cinema, like saying that Nakadai was Nakadai. "Goyokin" was one of the later rebel samurai films in which a woman had a central role. Asaoka is very good (and also as knocked around as Nakadai's character). And Tsukasai's Yoki is also intense in playing another important female character, Magobei's sister, Shino. She is as conflicted between loyalty to her husband and love for her brother as Magobei is torn between clan loyalty and unwillingness to countenance the means Rokugo employs for the "good of the clan." Tamba's Rokugo was a very unworthy opponent for Magobei in terms of character, but evenly matched with Nakadai's Magobei.

The color cinematography (this was the first Japanese movie shot in Panvision) of the highly photogenic Shimokita Peninsula by Okazaki Kozo x is gorgeous (another way in which it is a precursor for "House of Flying Daggers." And there is an outstanding score by Sato Masaru (rivaling the one he supplied Kurosawa for "Yojimbo," the headwater of the rebel samurai genre).

The film was not remastered, but the master was in excellent shape (at least I think that some of the scenes with super-saturated color were that way, since they do not occur randomly; the images may have been somewhat sharper, though). The subtitles were clear and grammatical but sometimes anachronistic (using American slang). The only extra is a not very good trailer.

(I'd rate the first half 4-star and the second half 5-star. The striking cinematography and framing of the action throughout nudged the rounding up. Gosha has been compared to John Ford, and the relentlessness of Nakadai's Magobei to that of John Wayne in "The Searchers." Set in 1831, "Goyokin" takes place decades before the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate, just as "The Searchers" takes place before the closing of the west.)

© 2006, Stephen O. Murray




Recommended:
Yes

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