Master of Japanese Sword FIght Movies, Misumi, at Museum of Moving Image

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Wednesday, 03 October 2012 21:27

Written by Renzo Adler

Creating a crimson swath of cinematic carnage, while director Kenji Misumi is not one of the most recognizable names in Japanese cinema, his films were integral in the creation of period piece (jidai geki) and swordfight (chambara) films. The Museum of the Moving Image (36-01 35 Avenue at 37 Street, Astoria), in association with the Japan Foundation, will be showing seven films from Musumi on October 5 – 14, 2012.

Fans of VHS era gore flicks might recall a film called Shogun Asassin, about a lone ronin wandering the countryside with his infant son and a deadly baby-carriage. This film was actually spliced together from two films by Musumi's long running Lone Wolf and Cub series; Sword of Vengeance and Baby Cart at the River Styx.

Another one of Misumi’s signature film series is Zatoichi, about a wandering blind swordsman posing as a masseur. Even though Misumi passed away in 1975, the Zatoichi series still has a wealth of sequels and remakes to this day. Misumi’s style is bold, perhaps tawdry, but never dumbed-down, and creates an image that is stark and simplictic, yet visually rich.

The films are:

• Destiny’s Son 
  After learning shocking truths about his origins from his dying father, Shingo seeks revenge and redemption. Based on the novel by Renzaburo Shibata.
   
• Fight, Zatoichi, Fight
  After witnessing the death of a young woman, Zatoichi promises to deliver her baby to the father. The eighth film in the Zatoichi series finds the blind hero in a web of deception and violence, as Zatoichi must fight off assassins intent on murdering him while the father refuses to claim the child.
   
• The Sword 
  Misumi’s only contemporary film stars Raizô Ichikawa as a talented pupil of kendo caught up in a rivalry with a fellow student. Based on the novella by Yukio Mishima.
   
• The Homely Sister
  In this touching and perceptive drama set in the nineteenth-century Edo period, two sisters have sacrificed their personal happiness to care for their ailing father. Younger Otaka falls in love but can’t accept a marriage proposal because, traditionally, the older sister needs to marry first. When older sister Oshizu learns of this decision, she takes matters in her own hands.
   
• Yotsuya Ghost Story
  In one of Japan’s most frequently told ghost stories, a murdered wife returns in an act of vengeance. This time around, however, she may have her husband there to help. Misumi’s brilliant black-and-white version of this bloody tale puts a new twist on the old story.
   
• Homeless Drifter
  Mushuku Mono follows Ipponmatsu, a wandering gambler, as he travels to a nearby village in search of his father’s killer. The deeper he gets into the underworld of the city, the more unexpected twists he must face. 

While Misumi is known more for his bloody sword fighting films (which were also a great influence to Quentin Tarantino), these films delve into fantasy and modern drama genres as well. His style is crisp and clean, and filled with stern solitary figures posed against a dramatic backdrop. One could easily give these films a cursory glance and write them off as schlock, but that would be doing a great disservice to their craft and artistry and the foundation they laid in dramatic and action cinema.

To learn more, go to http://www.movingimage.us/

The Films of Kenji Misumi
October 5 – 14, 2012

The Museum of the Moving Image
36-01 35 Avenue (at 37 Street)
Astoria, NY 11106

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