BD 345 Cruel Tale of Bushido

[Finch]

SYNOPSIS
Best known for dramas such as Until We Meet Again and An Inlet of Muddy Water, the Japanese filmmaker Tadashi Imai was also the director of Revenge, a highly accomplished and brutal jidaigeki picture. These two sensibilities come together in the film that might just stand as Imai’s masterpiece: Cruel Tale of Bushido.

Kinnosuke Nakamura (Miyamoto Musashi) stars in multiple roles, playing seven generations of men belonging to the same family. In the modern day, salaryman Iikura is devastated by his wife’s attempted suicide. To distract himself, he begins working through his recently discovered family records. As he traces his personal history across 350 years, he discovers tale after tale of men who have suffered, debased themselves and made untold sacrifices in the name of bushido, or the moral code of the samurai.

Featuring Eijiro Tono (Seven Samurai) and Masayuki Mori (Rashomon) in supporting roles and boasting a foreboding score by the celebrated composer Toshiro Mayuzumi, Cruel Tale of Bushido won the Golden Bear Award at the 1963 Berlin Film Festival for its uncompromising deconstruction of the all-too-often romanticised concept of bushido. The Masters of Cinema Series is honoured to present the film on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK.

SPECIAL FEATURES
Limited edition O-card slipcase featuring new artwork by Tony Stella [2000 copies]
Limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Japanese cinema expert Hayley Scanlon [2000 copies]
1080p HD presentation from a 4K restoration by Toei
Original Japanese mono audio
Optional DTS-HD MA 5,1 audio
Optional English subtitles, newly revised for this release
Telling a Cruel Tale – new interview with film critic Tony Rayns
Years of Honour – new video essay on Cruel Tale of Bushido and Japanese history by Jonathan Clements, author of A Brief History of Japan |
Trailer

[andyli]

Hmm.. it seems Toei have quietly restored some of their classic films in 4K and Eureka is bringing them out month after month. Did some digging and found 4K restorations of Kinji Fukasaku's House on Fire and A Chaos of Flowers as well. Eureka already did Red Peony Gambler 3: The Flower Cards Game and The Bullet Train but they've apparently been updated with 4K scans since (in the case of the latter, restored at 2K). Speaking of updates, Nikkatsu's Bakumatsu Taiyo-den (A Sun-Tribe Legend from the Bakumatsu Era) has also received a recent 4K remaster.

[Michael Kerpan]

Side note: Inlet of Muddy Water is rather a terrible translation of Nigorie. Higuchi's story already had a recognized English translation, Troubled Waters, when someone (possibly Donald Richie) gave the movie version an overly literal re-titling. Obviously the namer (whoever it may have been) was unaware of the already existing (and accepted) name. I wish someone would release Imai's Nigorie (and Till We Meet Again) and other NON-samurai films -- which I find far more interesting. But I think this is a forlorn hope at this point.

[Maltic]

Has any of you seen it?

It continues to receive critical acclaim, often considered one of the better samurai pictures ever filmed.

(Unsourced) statement on Wikipedia. I thought it was funny they use the comparative instead of the usual superlative.

Or Johnnie To dedicating Throw Down to Kurosawa "the greatest filmmaker."

[Michael Kerpan]

I think this Imai's later samurai films are pretty good -- just not as good as his earlier work. I seem to recall like his Revenge (Adauchi) better than this one -- by at least a bit.