Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

The Hidden Blade (2004) Directed by Yamada Yoji

In the later days of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Katagiri Munezo (Nagase Masatoshi) is a samurai in the rural Unasaka region. He watches one of his friends go off to Edo, Hazama Yaichiro, (Ozawa Yukiyoshi) destined for great things. His own family is of diminished circumstances following his father’s hari-kiri due to a disappearance of funds on a bridge building project. Despite these circumstances, the family is happy, Shinzo, (Tabata Tomoko) his sister is betrothed to one of his friends, Shamida Samon, (Yoshioka Hidetaka) and the servant girl Kei (Matsu Takako) brings much lightness to the family.

But Shinzo married, as did Kei to the Iseya clan, a merchant family, and much of the joy exited the household.

Years pass, his mother dies, and word reaches the family that Kei is very ill; her marriage is a misery; she is being worked to death. She has not been seen in the shop in over two months.

Katagiri goes to see the situation. Madame Iseya (Mitsumoto Sachiko) the mother in law is cloyingly polite, but saccharine, and when Katagiri asks to see Kei, she refuses.

However, there is little a merchant class woman can do to thwart a samurai who has made up his mind. Katagiri pushes his way in, finds Kei in a freezing storage room, too weak to rise. Katagiri picks her up, on his back, and informs her husband that he will be by in the morning to pick up his announcement of divorce. Then he leaves.

So Kei is reinstated in the household, and for a time, things improve. She regains her health, and then restores the house to a proper equilibrium.

During this time, Katagiri and the other men are being trained in western firearms and cannons. It does not go well. But what it does do is serve to highlight the plight of a warrior caste who have served through centuries of peace. Times are changing, and the Samurai are not.

One of the things that do not change is gossip, and perception. Katagiri’s rescue of Kei has caused quite a stir, and now Katagiri’s prospects of a proper marriage, already slim, are even worse.

Then, something occurs to bring all into focus: Hazama has been connected to a plot to overthrow the shogunate. He has been denied the right to commit seppuku and is coming home in a prisoner basket, to live out his days in solitary confinement, the ultimate shame.

This has several effects; one, it brings the Shogun’s chief retainer to the village to look for conspiracy. This puts Katagiri in an awkward spot; does he denounce his friend? Would it help? Katagiri does what a samurai should; he sticks to his honor. Now, ask me if that endears him to the Chief Retainer?

But things really heat up when Hazama escapes. As the only swordsman in the province with the skills to face Hazama, it falls to Katagiri to face his friend, and bring him to justice.

This movie is about the end of an era, a time of transition, when the way of the Samurai crashed up against the inflexible superiority of western warfare. One of the Japanese strengths is assimilation, but this had been hampered by the two hundred years of peace under the Tokugawa. Warriors without war turned to ritual for purpose and meaning, and thus grew inflexible.

This inflexible social structure is what made the romance between Katagiri and Kei an impossibility, and the need to change to meet the pressures of a changing empire are what led the Chief Retainer away from the paths of honor. Katagiri was made miserable by the same system he was willing to sacrifice his future to preserve.

This is a very Japanese film (outside of the whole obvious made in Japan thing.) It appeals to the uniquely Japanese sensibilities of duty, honor, the preservation of order. So why do I love it so much?

It has a happy ending.

(This meets Sleeper54’s criteria for Lean-n-Mean, a style to promote concise writing. It is 666 words exactly.)

Check out my reviews of all things Japanese:

My Neighbor Totoro
Across the Nightingale Floor
Grass For His Pillow
Brilliance of the Moon
Onmyoji II
Onmyoji
The Hidden Fortress
Hellboy: Storm of Swords
Vexille
Sanjuro
The Hidden Blade
Yaji & Kita: Midnight Pilgrims
Princess Mononoke
Spirited Away
Gay Tales of the Samurai
Howl's Moving Castle
Ghost Dog
Memoirs of a Geisha (Book)
Memoirs of Geisha (Movie)
The Last Samurai
The Sword that Cut the Burning Grass
Taboo
Forbidden Colors

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older