By the mid-1960s Japanese New Wave had taken over the Japanese imagination, box office, and film business. Ozu died in 1963. Mizoguchi died in 1956. Shimizu died in 1966. Kurosawa's career was at dead end after he and Mifune's creative partnership died. Kinoshita took a break after 45 movies in a mere 24 years. A younger, angrier, and more explosive generation of filmmakers burst onto the scene. Imamura Shohei, Suzuki Seijun, Shinoda Masahiro, Oshima Nagisa, and Teshigahara Hiroshi are the usual go-tos whenever this particular New Wave is discussed but there is someone I've always felt gets unfairly overlooked. The others are great in their own right. Gosha Hideo deserves a spot among these directors. Gosha's most famous for 2 things - his first feature
Three Outlaw Samurai and working with the likes of Tamba Tetsuro and Nakadai Tatsuya. The Nakadai connection alone should make him a bigger name but for some reason it doesn't. On that note, one of the team-ups with the glorious Nakadai,
Onimasa, was Rejected (!?) as a nominee for the Best Foreign at the 1982 Academy Awards. That is a serious fucking crime against cinema and most importantly Gosha (and Nakadai too, it would have been the second Nakadai appearance in that catergory. The other was the 1961 Kinoshita film
Immortal Love). This would have helped cement him into the American cinematic hive. There was already Kurosawa, thanks to Lucas and Spielberg, and Ozu, thanks to Paul Schrader's book,
Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, and Dryer). Donald Richie too, he is responsible for bringing appreciation of Japanese film too the States. Around these parts, he is a saint. However, he also didn't do a deep dive into Gosha either.
Gosha had a lengthy and interesting career. He had his niche - classy yet pervasive action films with a blunt political edge. He had his regular leading men - Nakadai Tatsuya, Tamba Tetsuro, Hira Mikijiro. He had recurring themes - bucking cinematic samurai and yakuza traditions, brutal and beautiful violence, and depicting how the lower class gets fucked over. He had everything that a director needs to have to at least be thought of noteworthy but alas...not many have taken that opportunity. The only book (as of now) I've found on him was written by his daughter, Tomoe, a few years after his passing. That book, Sayonara dake ga jinsei sa: Gosha Hideo to iu ikikata, has no English version and I do not speak Japanese. I know Yopparai, Oppai, and scattered other random words, which is not enough to read that book.
 |
| Sword of the Beast (1965) |
To me Gosha fulfills that space between sleazy entertainment and a "legitimate" studio film, in a way that very few are able to fully embrace that delicate balance. Much like Tartantino or Sam Peckinpah or Zulawski, during his time was seen as a "legitimate" despite the work having comparatively extreme violence and a sense of primal sexuality next to the work of Kurosawa or Imamura (who kinda falls into category but he was more...well, Imamura about things). His heroes were troubled men with a troubled past, until the 80s when he switched to stories of women in prostitution - troubled women with a troubled past. The villains are very memorable, the way they're supposed to be. The fights are top notch. It picked the artistry of
Yojimbo and added a darker edge to it. In turn, leading to gorefests like the
Lone Wolf and Cub series and
Lady Snowblood series. The sense of depravity in terms of sex and realistic violence within the lower class and upon the lower class is a forerunner of the girl gang film boom of the 70s (a boom he followed in spirit in the 80s). I'm not saying, he is the greatest filmmaker who ever lived. I am saying Gosha died too soon and needs a career critical reevaluation.
The point of this series is to celebrate the forgotten Gosha with a twist on what I usually do here. Instead of review all his films, which will cost too much/some are just impossible to find, I'll take 2 films from each decade of his feature film career and go into his life as a man and artist. The films are all, at the moment streaming on Filmstruck.
Three Outlaw Samurai (1964) - A ronin helps out 3 peasants, who've captured the local Lord's daughter with no intent to harm her. This spirals out of control, eventually 2 more ronin join in to defend the peasants from the tyrant Lord, whose worried about a visit from his Lord. This is an origin story of a TV series that Gosha worked on.
and
Sword of the Beast (1965) - Gennosuke is a low-level ronin after getting fucked over by his other samurai in a plan to reform legislation of their master. He goes on the run, whist getting chased by his former allies and narrowly escaping with his life in every encounter. He eventually teams up with some peasants to mine a Lord's gold which complicates things even further.
Bursting through the gates, Gosha immediately established himself as an elite Jidaigeki director, specifically dealing with the Chanbara subgenre. His stylish initial entries into the world of cinema are clearly made by someone who understood the Kurosawa school of action filmmaking. However, things take a grittier turn (I mean actual grittiness not the Bullshit DC movie 'gritty'). A few key common through-lines linking both of them are featuring Hira Mikijiro in a lead role, were co-written with Shiba Eizaburo, had fight choreography by Yuasa Kentaro. Along with the standard portrayal of the rich not only gleefully fucking over everyone below them but without a second of remorse.
The presence of class distinction and the various ways that society treats them is not just a mere coincidence. Several Japanese directors of this era covered class to the point of clique, Imamura most famously fetishized stories of the poor and forgotten to great success. An important detail in the key difference between Gosha and Imamura in regards to covering class is simple. As much as Imamura wanted to show the inequalities, he did not come from that world. Gosha was born and raised in that world. He understood that world in a way that other directors of the Japanese New Wave did not. Born to a street peddler/yojimbo father on February 29, 1929, Hideo's life and childhood was not easy. His father worked in and around the Yakuza and all their enterprises - gambling, prostitution, and the like. Life was a battle to be won. You fight with everything to survive. This mentality is integral to his protagonists. They are more often than not, survivors first and foremost. Gosha survived the childhood right into the war. At 15/16, he joined the navy as a tokkotai, aka kamikaze pilot. He was meant to go on his final mission in a blaze of glory but the bombs were dropped. His life was saved but that intense drive to live another day only intensified.
 |
| Three Outlaw Samurai (1964) |
First let's look at his protagonist in
Sword of the Beast, Gennosuke. The will-to-live drives him from a formerly honorable samurai into a beast (not of the Beauty variety). Gennosuke from the earliest moment is more animal than man. A woman wants to lay with him. This sounds like a trap. After a brief moment, he follows his animal instinct to mate. It backfires. It was a trap. He's cornered, angry, and horny but lives another day. Cynical disillusionment haunts him every step of his journey. Trust is a luxury. When anyone shows any sign of kindness it's fishy at best. Coming from a world of constant uncertainty, you simply don't know who's out to exploit you. Social establishments are not intended for you if you're poor, even if you're a samurai. Gennosuke was trying help other lower class people like him or so he thought. This led to the ultimate betrayal, killing his master over essentially nothing. He was the sacrifice needed for his fellow samurai to have an out and get away with it. Seemingly disposable after a single use, Gennosuke was not going down. It's an uphill battle but he was scrappy enough to endure. However, that leads into a path of self-destruction. Every battle isn't a
Yojimbo/
Seven Samurai classy affair. They are true life-or-death struggles. They get ugly and brutal. Things get rough, messy, and bloody. There is no honor here, only humanity as Gosha saw it.
Following the war, Gosha lost several family members including siblings. He tried to take care of his remaining family. He could not do it. The job that the man of the family is supposed to fulfill, he couldn't manage. This affected him drastically to put it lightly. His outlook turned cynical and dark. According to his daughter, Tomoe, he was so obsessed with his own perceived lack of masculinity that he was couldn't love women and found the prospect of trusting other people difficult.
 |
| Sword of the Beast (1965) |
In
Three Outlaw Samurai, the central conflict is built around the 3 peasants versus the corrupt Lord. They have a petition that the Lord ignores, so kidnapping his daughter is the only viable option to get any remote attention from him. From the opening, it's already questioning the concept of honor as is found in the new samurai films. Kurosawa parodied the very genre that made him an international superstar with
Sanjuro a few years earlier, but Gosha takes the notions of that palette a step further into dirtier territory. Both sides are throwing honor and respect aside to get what they want. The Lord is prepping for a visit by his superior Lord. The peasants just want to be acknowledged. Gosha's surrogates are the 3 lead peasants. They are trying to succeed but the powers that be are stomping out every attempt. Even though the peasants rally together a small movement, it doesn't matter. They get killed for stepping out of societal lines. At one point, dragging a tied up woman the ground so harshly that she dies and we see this. In between however, 3 ronin samurai help out these down and out locals. They are not just warriors, they are strong, smart, and kind. They are masculine, something that Gosha didn't see himself as. They are more than the stars of a former TV show, they represent what a man can and is supposed to be. In the end, no one wins. The 3 ronin can't defeat the chaos and cruelty of humanity, no matter how hard they try to.
The path that led to Gosha's first films is a strange one. After a degree from Meiji University, he swiftly got hired by the radio station - Nippon Hoso. While there, Gosha did a little bit of everything and most importantly, audio. Understanding good sound design was the key for successful radio and that transfers smoothly into film. In 1957, he started working on Fuji TV. Gosha started out on crime dramas and went up through the ranks. The chanbara genre was unknown territory until 1962. He made a Musashi adaptation but that same year
Sanjuro was released. This prompted him to create the series
Three Outlaw Samurai, it was hit. It showed off his cynical view of human nature and the bestial side of people. Shochiku took notice and crossed a taboo line. You were either a TV director or film director. He made
Three Outlaw Samurai under challenging circumstances. The crew made directing a shitshow. They'd rig lights to fall near him and hide his shoes in water for him to find.
 |
| Sword of the Beast (1965) |
These 2 films would not exist of not for Kurosawa. There are touches of
Seven Samurai,
Yojimbo,
Sanjuro, and
Hidden Fortress throughout them. The end of
Three Outlaw Samurai is the beginning of
Yojimbo. Someone throws an object in the air and go off where it points to. It's an interesting reference point to pick. I find it a bit too much while understanding it's a tribute to the Emperor. The fight choreography puts up where Kurosawa left and makes things bloodier, meaner, and more brutal. It's jarring at times, how rough it gets. They are exciting to watch but you feel and understand that things are not well with the world, if people behave like. In Kurosawa's violence, people retain their humanity. In Gosha's violence, people lose their humanity and morality and just follow instinct. This isn't the only time connection though, the reveal of the first of 3 samurai is the same as Mifune in
Sanjuro. Down to the yawn and explaining how dumb their plan is, it mimics to a tee. The 3 are just different aspects of the
Sanjuro character split into 3 characters. As great as Tanba, Nagato, and Hira are, they don't equal a Mifune. For
Sword of the Beast, the key connection is gold. A part of the plot centers around gold, this time there are no droids or fire festivals or Princess Yukis. I like the tributes acknowledging the key influences, it shows that Gosha knew exactly what he was doing.
Each film is bursting with style at every turn in that way a young cocky filmmaker with something to prove. Gosha wanted to prove he could make stylish violence with the realistic consequences of said violence. He succeeded. The recurring use of the foreground as a destination for the character, throws you into the intrigue. The long, lingering shots of combat tracking every slice with a bloody aftermath force you to pay attention the entire time. He's a master of making it repulsive and exciting. Not just the action sequences but the openings as explosives. The titles explode onto the screen with an atonal sting. That sting foreshadows the atonal scores by Tsushima Toshiaki, which adds to the chaotic, unpredictable worlds of both films. Dutch angles, unusual zooms, and groups of 3 are littered throughout these.
 |
| Three Outlaw Samurai (1964) |
By the end of the 1960s, he was near the end of his chanbara phrase of his career. Nakadai had entered his cinematic life by that point. A partnership that would go through to the end of his career. Gosha Hideo endured so much throughout his life by this point and luckily was able prove himself as a man and as a worthy director with 2 features so far.
Comments
Post a Comment