Love and Honour / Bushi No Ichibun

YOJI YAMADA brings his trilogy of pictures based on stories by Shuhei Fujisawa to a successful conclusion with this engrossing fusion of soap opera and samurai drama, writes Donald Clarke.

Like its predecessors ( The Twilight Samuraiand The Hidden Blade), Love and Honourhighlights the more mundane aspects of life as a middle-ranking feudal noble. Indeed, the hero trudges to his job as a food tester with all the enthusiasm that Reggie Perrin once brought to his daily march towards CJ's office. Yet, as events progress, Yamada's singular film gathers impressive levels of tension about itself. It is, for the most part, a quiet piece, but it's a powerful one.

The drama kicks off when Shinnojo (Takuya Kimura) keels over after tasting shellfish intended for his aging master. He survives the experience, but is rendered blind. Terrified by the threat of financial embarrassment, Kayo (Rei Dan), the samurai's virtuous wife, seeks the help of a senior official with whom she was once friendly. The official secures (or so she believes) a generous pension for Shinnojo, but he demands sexual favours in return. When the blind man discovers the grisly truth, he flings his wife out on the street and plots an unlikely revenge.

It sounds like the stuff of melodrama, and, yes, the picture does feature one craftily staged swordfight and no small amount of breast beating and hair teasing (not to mention some unreconstructed pre-industrial misogyny). But Yamada is more interested in tensed lips than hurtling crockery, and allows the drama to unfold in a series of taught, elegantly composed vignettes.

The moving denouement is no less satisfactory for being fastidious in its desire to tidy up all loose ends.

***
Directed by Yoji Yamada. Starring Takuya Kimura, Rei Dan (Kayo), Takashi Sasano, Nenji Kabayashi, Toshiki Ayata, Nobuto Okamoto Club, IFI, Dublin, 121 min