In the 16th century, in war-torn Japan, Araki Murashige (Masahiro Motoki), a samurai who previously served under Oda Nobunaga, rebels against him and undertakes a seemingly suicidal mission by barricading himself in Arioka Castle.
Within the first minutes of the film, he is visited there by a legendary strategist, Kuroda Kanbei (Masaki Suda), who attempts to convince him to abandon this lost cause. When Murashige refuses, Kanbei expects to be killed and his head delivered to Oda, as is the samurai way, but is instead imprisoned in a dungeon.
While Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s The Samurai and the Prisoner starts as a traditional, yet unusual for the author of Cure and Pulse, jidaigeki, it promptly adds another genre to the mix. As time goes by and seasons change, Murashige is faced with four mysteries, four seemingly impossible crimes that happen within the castle walls, which he presents to his wise prisoner to try and solve.
There is, of course, a fifth and much grander mystery woven in the film’s structure. As a shift in the relationship between the two titular characters occurs and the mutual begrudging respect grows, one can’t help but wonder if Kanbei’s engagement is genuine or simply a part of one of the strategies he is famous for. The Samurai and the Prisoner is a puzzle (in the best possible way) in its own right, a film that fluently changes the languages it speaks in.
While the plot seems to be preoccupied with curious details and clues, with possible involvement of supernatural forces hanging over – could it be a curse? divine punishment? a magical invisible arrow? – all of these mysteries, while compelling, aren’t the actual core of the story. The war that surrounds the castle walls and preoccupies everyone’s thoughts is at the heart of it all, and yet the authors only allow us a few brief glimpses of it.
Unlike the classic jidaigekis that often offer moral lessons, Kurosawa’s film is more interested in moral dilemmas, reminiscent in this sense of a great masterpiece by the other Kurosawa, also notably told in four segments. Unlike Rashomon, The Samurai and the Prisoner isn’t probing at the elusive nature of truth, but instead explores other dire existential matters, like the idea of eternal salvation and the paths that might lead to it.
Everything is fragile and elusive in this story, captured hauntingly in demure colors by the DOP, Yasuyuki Sasaki. The titular prisoner may be physically restricted by the jail walls, but retains the freedom of his agile mind, while his captor is the one who struggles against the confines of traditions, ideas about honor and duty, and the weight of responsibility for other people's lives. Murashige is a paradoxical figure: a samurai who repeatedly goes against the samurai code by refusing to engage in senseless violence and to kill just for the sake of it.
The window of theatrical releases turns The Samurai and the Prisoner into a curious companion to The Odyssey, and not just due to the explicit anti-war message these films contain. Both films, albeit very differently, forego most of the actual action and adventures for the sake of the battles happening inside their protagonists’ minds. While Odysseus strives to make it home, ridden by trauma and guilt in the aftermath of great nonsensical bloodshed, Murashige tries to prevent as much of it as possible.
Both films go to great lengths to show that what’s perceived as “honorable” death is still death all the same, and that sometimes retreat, despite still largely being perceived as a source of shame around the globe, might be the only tangible path to a semblance of peace.
The film is now playing, only in movie theaters, via Janus Films.