A pair of down-on-their-luck swordsmen arrive in a dusty, windblown town, where they become involved in a local clan dispute. One, previously a farmer, longs to become a noble samurai. The other, a former samurai haunted by his past, prefers living anonymously with gangsters. But when both men discover the wrongdoings of the nefarious clan leader, they side with a band of rebels who are under siege at a remote mountain cabin.
Direction
Okamoto's comic timing rivals his action choreography.
Cinematography
Windblown dust becomes a character unto itself.
Writing
Self-aware dialogue mocks the very genre it celebrates.
Director
Kihachi Okamoto
Tatsuya Nakadai
Genta
Etsushi Takahashi
Hanji (Hanjiro Tabata)
Yuriko Hoshi
Chino Kajii
Tadao Nakamaru
Magobei Shôda
Akira Kubo
Monnosuke Takei
Shigeru Kōyama
Tamiya Ayuzawa
Eijirō Tōno
Hyogo Moriuchi
Shin Kishida
Jurota Arao
Atsuo Nakamura
Tetsutaro
Nami Tamura
Yô
Hideyo Amamoto
Gendayu Shimada
Yoshio Tsuchiya
Shinroku Matsuo
Isao Hashimoto
Kônosuke Fujii
Akira Hamada
Denzô Nishimura
Takeo Chii
Yaheiji Yoshida
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Tatsuya Nakadai played the villain in Yojimbo and Sanjuro; here he parodies his own screen persona.
The film satirizes 1960s Japan's salaryman culture through its ronin characters—ambition without means, loyalty without reward.
JP
