Bushido, Samurai Saga

1963 film

Norio Nanjo
Naoyuki Suzuki
Yoshikata Yoda

Produced byHiroshi OkawaStarringKinnosuke NakamuraCinematographyMakoto TsuboiEdited byShintaro MiyamotoMusic byToshiro Mayuzumi

Production
company

Toei

Distributed byToei

Release date

28 April 1963 (1963-04-28)^[1]

Running time

122 minutesCountryJapanLanguageJapanese

Bushido, Samurai Saga (武士道残酷物語, Bushidō zankoku monogatari), also titled Bushido: The Cruel Code of the Samurai and Cruel Tale of Bushido, is a 1963 Japanese drama and jidaigeki film directed by Tadashi Imai.^[2] It was entered into the 13th Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Golden Bear.^[3]^[4] It continues to receive critical acclaim, often considered one of the better samurai pictures ever filmed.

Plot

The story covers seven generations of a family, from the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate to the early 1960s, and the extremes its members take out of devotion and unswerving loyalty to lord, country or company, at the cost of their lives and those of close relatives. Susumu, the last in line of male heirs, finally decides against this stance after his fiancée's suicide attempt.

Cast

Kinnosuke Nakamura as Jirozaemon / Iikura / Sajiemon / Kyutaro / Shuzo / Shingo / Osamu / Susumu
Eijirō Tōno as Shibiku-Shosuke Hori
Kyōko Kishida as Lady Hagi
Masayuki Mori as Lord Tambanokami Munemasa Hori
Shinjirō Ehara as Shibiku-Shosuke Yasutaka Hori
Takeshi Katō
Yoshiko Mita as Kyoko Hitomi
Ineko Arima as Maki, Shuzo's wife
Isao Kimura as Hirotaro Iguchi (as Ko Kimura)
Michiko Araki as Shigeno, Kyutaro's mother
Emiko Azuma as Hori Tamba's wife
Yoshi Katō as Takahiro Hori
Choichiro Kawarazaki as Young man at village
Kikko Matsuoka as Sato, Shuzo's daughter
Kō Nishimura as Yamaoka
Masao Oda as Gohei
Ryosuke Kagawa as Kōzuki Genza
Satomi Oka as Fuji
Nobuo Kawai as Shimoda
Kei Satō as Saburobei Konoe
Misako Watanabe as Yasu, Sajiemon's wife
Kei Yamamoto as Kazuma Noda
Eijirō Yanagi as Gonnosuke Shizuta

References

^ "武士道残酷物語 (Bushido, Samurai Saga)". Kinenote (in Japanese). Retrieved 12 August 2021.
^ "Bushido, Samurai Saga". Film Affinity. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
^ "Berlinale: Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved 13 February 2010.
^ "武士道残酷物語 (Bushido, Samurai Saga)". Kotobank (in Japanese). Retrieved 13 January 2021.

External links

Bushido, Samurai Saga at IMDb

Berlin International Film Festival Golden Bear

1951–1975

Cinderella (1951)
Four in a Jeep (1951)
In Beaver Valley (1951)
Justice Is Done (1951)
Without Leaving an Address (1951)
One Summer of Happiness (1952)
The Wages of Fear (1953)
Hobson's Choice (1954)
Die Ratten (1955)
Invitation to the Dance (1956)
12 Angry Men (1957)
Wild Strawberries (1958)
Les Cousins (1959)
El Lazarillo de Tormes (1960)
La Notte (1961)
A Kind of Loving (1962)
Bushido, Samurai Saga (1963)
To Bed or Not to Bed (1963)
Dry Summer (1964)
Alphaville (1965)
Cul-de-sac (1966)
The Departure (1967)
Who Saw Him Die? (1968)
Early Works (1969)
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971)
The Canterbury Tales (1972)
Distant Thunder (1973)
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974)
Adoption (1975)

1976–2000

Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976)
The Ascent (1977)
Ascensor (1978)
Las truchas (1978)
What Max Said (1978)
David (1979)
Heartland (1980)
Palermo or Wolfsburg (1980)
Deprisa, Deprisa (1981)
Veronika Voss (1982)
Ascendancy (1983)
La colmena (1983)
Love Streams (1984)
Wetherby (1985)
The Woman and the Stranger (1985)
Stammheim (1986)
The Theme (1987)
Red Sorghum (1988)
Rain Man (1989)
Larks on a String (1990)
Music Box (1990)
The House of Smiles (1991)
Grand Canyon (1992)
The Wedding Banquet (1993)
Woman Sesame Oil Maker (1993)
In the Name of the Father (1994)
The Bait (1995)
Sense and Sensibility (1996)
The People vs. Larry Flynt (1997)
Central Station (1998)
The Thin Red Line (1999)
Magnolia (2000)

2001–present

Intimacy (2001)
Bloody Sunday (2002)
Spirited Away (2002)
In This World (2003)
Head-On (2004)
U-Carmen eKhayelitsha (2005)
Grbavica (2006)
Tuya's Marriage (2007)
Elite Squad (2008)
The Milk of Sorrow (2009)
Honey (2010)
A Separation (2011)
Caesar Must Die (2012)
Child's Pose (2013)
Black Coal, Thin Ice (2014)
Taxi (2015)
Fire at Sea (2016)
On Body and Soul (2017)
Touch Me Not (2018)
Synonyms (2019)
There Is No Evil (2020)
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (2021)
Alcarràs (2022)
On the Adamant (2023)
Dahomey (2024)

v t e Films directed by Tadashi Imai
Minshū no Teki (1946) Aoi sanmyaku (1949) Until We Meet Again (1950) An Inlet of Muddy Water (1953) Mahiru no ankoku (1956) Jun'ai Monogatari (1957) Rice (1957) (also The Rice People) Night Drum (1958) Kiku to Isamu (1959) Bushido, Samurai Saga (1963) Brother and Sister (1976)