Samurai Fiction (1998)

Samurai Fiction is a comedy action film set in the Tokugawa Period in Japan. The opening narration refers to this period as being 300 years ago and tells the story in the past tense. This assumes that the narrator lives in modern times and establishes part of the tone of the film. The narrator is a character named Heishiro Inukai (Mitsuru Fukikoshi), who is a wealthy son in a clan that is robbed of its sacred sword by a master swordsman named Rannosuke Kazamatsuri (Tomoyasu Hotei). Dead set on proving himself, he goes against his father’s wishes and sets out to reclaim the sword and kill the thief. On the way he is accompanied by his two friends, the three of them having earned the nickname amongst others in the clan, “The Three Stooges.” They certainly live up to the name as they chase after the thief for miles screaming and shouting at each other, making for some pretty hilarious scenes. They eventually catch up with Kazamatsuri, but the three-on-one ends in expectedly disastrous results. Heishiro is rescued from certain death by another ronin named Hanbei Mizoguchi (Morio Kazama), who along with his beautiful daughter Koharu (Tamaki Ogawa), nurse him back to health and try to teach him to appreciate life. After this point, the film loses a bit of steam and could have benefited from cutting a few scenes. While Heishiro is recovering, there is another subplot following Kazamatsuri dealing with corrupt gamblers and gangs in town that doesn’t really build to a whole lot before the finale.

The film is shot entirely in black and white in tribute to old samurai films, such as those by Kurasawa, with the exception of a few key instances. These instances are death scenes which are not only shot in slow motion, but with the screen tinting to red, emphasizing the death. The appreciation of life is a big theme of the film, so these death scenes stand out pretty vividly. The story itself is pretty standard for a samurai film, but the added humor as well as the modern feel keep the story fresh and distinguish it from the genre that it pays tribute to. This modern feel is emphasized greatly with not only the way some characters talk, but with the music. The action scenes are accompanied by rock music by Tomoyasu Hotei, the actor playing Kazamatsuri. While this works for many of the fight scenes, especially those early on, in some cases it doesn’t really fit. In the first part of the film, the pace is much faster and following the opening credits (shot is in color showing the silhouettes of samurai dueling, not unlike a certain scene later used in Kill Bill vol.1), it matches the action and heightened sense of the world the story takes place in. The music, though amusing for the most part, is kind of a mixed bag. In most of the film it only plays during the action scenes, so later on in the film, when there are far fewer of them, they don’t feel as natural with the rock soundtrack.

There are some unique shots throughout the film, one of which is the use of the pull back when characters are walking. They seem to be moving with the camera as they walk towards the screen, but if they stop for whatever reason, the camera keeps pulling away from them, making them have to run to keep up. It’s a surprisingly funny use of the shot and adds a certain degree of humor to a simple scene. There are also a lot of extreme close-ups and long shots reminiscent of those seen in Spaghetti Westerns. Hiroyuki Nakano, having previously worked on music videos as well as other films, provides an interesting style that is easily distinguishable. Though it’s not perfect, Samurai Fiction is an entertaining comedy that is worth seeing for any fan of the Samurai film, or jidaigeki, genre.