Red Lion (1969)

directed by Kihachi Okamoto

Japan

117 minutes

4.5 stars out of 5

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A "here's the new boss, same as the old boss" movie for the ages.

I've watched this movie many times and consider it a favorite (it actually seems to get better every time I watch it, which is always a good quality for a movie to have) but I've never written about it before because with certain movies, especially ones grounded in historical events I'm not terribly familiar with, I feel like I'm not smart enough to say anything coherent about them. But this particular movie, despite being jidaigeki, very clearly has things to say not just about the state of things as they were at the beginning of the Meiji Restoration, but also as they were in the 1960s and, I would argue, perennially.

To give a very broad overview: after the Shogunate is abolished, Imperial troops called the Sekiho-tai are tasked with spreading the message of the change in power across the country, stripping officials of their previously-endowed statuses, and convincing the populace of the wisdom and superiority of the new system of governance. Red Lion follows a very low-ranking member of these troops named Gonzo (Toshirō Mifune) as he basically charms his way into getting appointed as an official representative and is tasked with liberating his small, back-country hometown and its people. But while Gonzo has an optimistic vision of this new state of affairs as a peasant's dream - a system where poverty will be eased and the common people will no longer be under the boot of their previous rulers - the truth is that although the names and faces may change, the influence of governmental power on the lowest rungs of society remains the same.

And that last point is really the crux of this entire movie, and the reason why I like it so much. Gonzo is so, so genuinely convinced that this is really it: this is the time when people like him will finally get their day in the sun, when life will no longer be back-breaking labor just to live at a subsistence level under heavy taxes levied by rich men. He believes in this so thoroughly. He is such a deeply earnest man - and, yes, as the movie reminds us, a little simple, but if anything the viewer is urged to envy that about him, to admire his lack of jadedness. Gonzo is so wrapped up in his idea of a utopia - and his joy at playing a part in ushering in that utopia - that he's blind to the reality of his situation.

I really think that this is one of Mifune's best roles. As others have said, for him it's a bit of a... maybe the opposite of a face-heel turn? A heel-face turn? It's a rare example of an actor who is instantly recognizable managing to ease flawlessly into a role that requires him to act like a bumbling, simple, pure-hearted country bumpkin. Nothing about his performance here comes off forced: not his infectious physicality, not his stutter, not his zeal for collective liberation. And it's not just Mifune, either: this movie works as well as it does because it has a fantastic ensemble cast, from Minori Terada as Sanji the pickpocket to Nobuko Otowa's small but compelling role as Oharu, a freed prostitute. I also have to mention the comedic elements of the film as well, because besides being an effective societal commentary, the movie is also funny as hell (I want to study Yūnosuke Itō's line delivery in a lab).

Although Gonzo as an individual ends up unable to overcome the sheer power of the ruling class, the idea of liberation that he infects his hometown with survives beyond his death, as is implied in the final minutes of the film. This is, if we can call it "optimism", an unusually optimistic view for Okamoto, whose outlook tends to be a bit cynical - or, I guess, just realistic.

I'm sure this won't be the last time I revisit this movie, and I'm glad to see that there seem to be more positive reviews for it on Letterboxd than when I last looked. I think this is one of Okamoto's best, one of Mifune's best, and honestly, one of my favorite jidaigeki. Not only does the film have a deeply resonant moral, it's also just really, really fun.