Saga of the Vagabonds (1959)

directed by Toshio Sugie

Japan

115 minutes

4 stars out of 5

----

I might be a little biased in rating this movie relatively high, because I wanted to see it so bad I spent almost $30 on a DVD of it, but I also genuinely do feel like this is much better than people (the scant few others who have seen it, anyway) are giving it credit for. I think it's a crapshoot which samurai films are easy to find and which ones are either lost or nearly out-of-print, because I've seen much worse stuff that you can find with a single Google search, and then really great movies like this that have fallen into obscurity. I can't even imagine what else must be lost or just not available at all outside of Japan.

Most of the reason this has any notoriety is because the screenplay was written by Akira Kurosawa. You can definitely tell that it's a cut above in that respect, and it has some of the themes of human nature and reliability that he often tends to use in his films, but it's not quite at the level of quality of his other stuff (obviously, due to being directed by someone else). The opening of the film introduces us to a group of brigands, who half of the storyline is concerned with; they've looted a long gun from somewhere and are now trying to figure out how it works. This is a really interesting way of grounding the movie in a specific time and place, because it shows that the events taking place are happening at a time when warfare and fighting in general is changing because of the increasing spread of firearms. The most gun-savvy of the group declares, when asked, that a gun is specifically for killing people, nothing else. While weapons most commonly used at the time, such as swords and bows and arrows, are also arguably made for killing people, the impersonal nature of the gun compared to something that one can train at and make into a skill, if not an art - like a sword - renders it into a paradigm-changing object as soon as it is introduced into the scene.

There are essentially two levels of society that Saga of the Vagabonds follows, and I'd argue that the main point of the film is to show that there are not many differences between the two. Toshiro Mifune plays the accidental ringleader of a large group of thieves and general outcasts into which Koji Tsuruta's character, Taro, a young lord from a respectable family, integrates himself after having been ambushed, robbed, and left for dead while delivering some gold. To save face, his family back home throws him under the bus by making up a story where he steals the gold himself and goes into hiding. Taro bridges the gap between the higher strata and the less-than-"common folk", and in doing so exposes that the world he comes from is as full of lying and thievery as the band of brigands that eventually morphs into something of a vigilante justice squad. Although this group is not operating out of purely "good" intentions, Taro casts his lot with them because he sees that they have more potential for improving the lives of the general populace than his family, who are largely concerned with themselves.

Tsuruta's young lord is betrayed by his brother who is in turn betrayed by a vassal who was waiting in the wings, playing everyone, so that he could eventually get his own chance at a title. The other point of this film that is equally if not more important than its focus on the corruption and backstabbing that pervades every level of society is that most if not all efforts at organization fail because people are inherently out for themselves. This is where we see Kurosawa's writing at its most familiar, somewhat reminiscent of the doubt at the heart of Rashomon. The cycle of greed that tears apart the royal family eventually tears itself apart, because a couple of people who are each individually plotting ways to get over on each other can't rely on each other, even just to use one another for their own gains. Even the band of criminals that Tsuruta and Mifune lead, stealing from the rich and giving back to the poor, falls apart because one or two among them are too focused on using their newfound strength in numbers to dominate others - in this case, to claim women for themselves like they're objects. This is an "absolute power corrupts absolutely" type of story. Even a little bit of power, even shared among multiple people, is an unstable thing, and the tides can turn in a heartbeat because humans are inherently unpredictable and, this film seems to argue, selfish.

There is a little bit of a romance angle, but women are mostly used as, again, objects; they don't have much agency in the script outside of how their actions are going to affect whatever man is trying to ingratiate himself to them. This was not terribly important to me and although the general lack of women in chanbara is something I'm used to, that doesn't make it any less disappointing.

I'm not sure why one review I've seen says that the plot takes a backseat for most of the film because to me this was nothing but plot. I was deliberately concentrating on keeping it all straight in my head because this was a story I was very interested in. I guess a lot of it is action; there's certainly a lot of horse stuff, and the typical chanbara scenery with fights and rowdy drinking songs and whatnot, but I didn't feel like there was an uneven balance between that and the plot. It's beautifully made, mostly taking place outdoors, and everyone you know and love is in it (including, apparently, Haruo Nakajima - who I missed). I don't know, it might just be that spending money on it made me more determined to like this, but I really thought it was superior to a lot of the other movies I've been watching lately. I don't review them because I don't feel like I can talk intelligently enough about them, but I watch a LOT of samurai films, it is an area of interest of mine.