Release date: December 11th and December 21st, 1955
Director: Kyotaro Namiki & Buntaro Futagawa
Studio: Produced by Takarazuka, released by Toho
Cast: Kanjuro Arashi, Denjiro Okochi, Senjaku Nakamura, Ryotaro Oki, Chikage Ogi, Tamao Nakamura, Akihiko Hirata et al.
Availability: VHS releases. Infrequent theater screenings. No other home media or streaming availability.
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Today in the "I wish these were more accessible" department, let's look at a duology of films with a cast full of jidaigeki heavy-hitters that have somehow not had a decent home media release in the past 70 years. The first film was subtitled "Ambush at Onibushi Pass" [Onibushi-toge shougeki], the second was subtitled "Bloody Battle at Dawn" [Akatsuki no kessen].
These films are based on an actual historical event, which I'll only give the broad strokes of here since I'm not terribly familiar with it. An argument broke out during a memorial service for Tadamasa Okudaira, former lord of the Utsunomiya domain, on March 2nd, 1668, between members of separate branches of the Okudaira clan, supposedly in response to one of them being late to the service. One man was killed, and in response not only his killer but also his killer's family were punished, stripped of their stipends, and some sent into exile, including a 12-year-old boy. The boy, Genpachi, drew popular support, and some members of the Okudaira clan abandoned their posts and became ronin in service of revenge against the murderer. Ultimately, a group of 42 ronin raided the mansion where the murderer, Hayato Okudaira, was hiding. This occurred 30 years before the more famous Ako Roshi incident, popularized across the world as Chushingura or some variation on the title "47 Ronin".
The story was disseminated widely throughout the country (which is why it should probably be taken with a grain of salt) in various contemporary publications, and was also adapted into plays and other forms of storytelling, including, eventually, this set of two films by Toho that we're going to look at today.
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| Jorurizaka in 2017. Credit to Tokuzo Edomura. |
Kyotaro Namiki also directed Kurama Tengu Goyo-to ihen, a favorite of mine which we looked at quite a while ago (it's the one with Dr. Serizawa in it). Aside from that, his career doesn't seem to have produced much in the way of hits; he worked with Kanjūrō Arashi's production company on many occasions as well as Shōzō Makino's, and was active from 1929 to 1960. The two Joruri Slope movies were actually co-directed by him and Buntaro Futakawa, brother of Eisuke Takizawa, who did another dear favorite of mine, Tetsuwan namida ari. Futakawa was 56 at the time, and retired after directing these two films, dying only nine years later. Namiki, on the other hand, lived to be 99, and wrote a little bit after retiring from filmmaking.
A few other names from the staff: the original work was written by Sanjugo Naoki, a man of many pen names who also knew Masahiro Makino, and it was adapted to the screen by Ryo Takei and Rokuhei Susukita, two people who do not have Wikipedia pages. Takei has writing credits for many things we're familiar with here, such as the two Tea-Picker's Song of Goodbye films and Wharf with the Weeping Girl. Susukita worked for over 50 years and wrote a whole hell of a lot of things, but these movies are the only ones he wrote for that are relevant to our interests.
Speaking of writing, there was also a manga adaptation of these films which I unfortunately can't find any pictures of besides a Mandarake listing.
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| Hirata's character on the left-hand side, third from top |
Hirata plays a character named Kyubei Okudaira. He is on Hayato's side, and is one of Chikage Ogi's character Kikuno's three brothers. He gets killed in the second film. That is about all I can tell you. Our sum total of visual evidence for this role amounts to three images: the press sheet featured above, the following press sheet...
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| We love grainy photos here. Hirata's character is fourth from left in the row of portraits, recognizable by his chonmage and because Toho's in-house portrait artist/s was (were?) pretty consistent in the way they drew him. |
...and get ready, because it can and will get even grainer than that:
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| I swear that at some point I saw a larger version of this image and could make out that Hirata is on the very bottom right. |
As for screenings, both of these films have played, like every other Japanese movie ever made, at Laputa Asagaya. They have also been aired on pay-per-view TV at least once in 2021. I don't have a lot to go off of in terms of critical reception, but one reviewer felt very strongly that bad character writing made the second part take a sharp downturn and essentially ruined the rest of the film. Another reviewer calls the films "fairly entertaining".
That, unfortunately, is kind of it. It's surprising there isn't more out there about these, considering that they do have a physical release. The tapes seem to be quite rare, but rest assured that if they ever do come up for auction, no matter how expensive, I'll be getting my hands on them.
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