By George & Josh Bate
Take the stories of Agatha Christie, Akira Kurosawa, and William Shakespeare, throw them in a blender, and add in some The Silence of the Lambs, and one will arrive at The Samurai and the Prisoner, a dense yet absorbing and intricately constructed historical whodunnit from one of Japan’s finest filmmakers.
Based on Honobu Yonezawa’s hit 2021 novel and screening at this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival, The Samurai and the Prisoner takes place in the 1500s in war-torn Japan. Araki Murashige (Masahrio Motoki), a samurai who once served under the tyrannical Oda Nobunaga, boldly rebels against his former leader and barricades himself inside the walls of Arioka Castle. To convince Murashige to abandon his rebellion, strategist Kuroda Kanbei (Masaki Suda) comes to Araki Castle, only to be shocked when Murashige defies samurai custom and decides to imprison him in a dungeon.
From the initial set-up, which quickly introduces viewers to both the titular samurai and prisoner, director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s film divides into four chapters, each of which correspond to the four seasons of the year. In each of these four chapters, Murashige is faced with a puzzling murder to solve within the walls of Arioka Castle, as the ongoing war waged by Oda Nobunaga looms large in the background. To solve the murders, Murashige consults with his prisoner Kanbei, whose superior intellect affords him insights into the crimes others are not privy to.
Kurosawa has established a reputation for extraordinarily well-crafted, beautifully shot, and psychologically unsettling films that thrive on ambiguity and offer profound examinations of characters’ existential crises. Although decidedly different from Cure, Pulse, and the number of other acclaimed movies in his filmography, The Samurai and the Prisoner clearly comes from a filmmaker deftly equipped to maximize the use of confined spaces and capable of quietly escalating tension through subtle camera movements and intentional shot compositions.
Despite taking place during a war, which is spoken of in nearly every scene of the film, The Samurai and the Prisoner is far better characterized as a contained whodunnit. It has far more in common with Agatha Christie’s And There Were None than it does Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. At its core, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s film is a chamber piece, within which four puzzles present themselves for both the protagonist and the audience to wrap their heads around.
In restricting its setting almost exclusively to the walls within Arioka Castle, The Samurai and the Prisoner is largely devoid of the kind of action set-pieces one may expect from a samurai film. In the place of combat are 147 minutes of dense dialogue-heavy scenes that encompass the totality of the film. To label Kurosawa’s movie as loquacious feels like an egregious understatement, such is the proportion of the runtime dedicated to characters exchanging dialogue.
Kurosawa doesn’t slow down to help viewers orient themselves to the story or the broader world around it, nor does he pause to let audience members grow accustomed to the names of characters and the roles these characters play in the war. In turn, The Samurai and the Prisoner makes for somewhat challenging viewing. It intrigues with the murder mysteries it presents but demands unwavering attention and is certainly not for people accustomed to simultaneously watching movies and scrolling on their phones.
While the film would have benefitted from additional exposition and relying less heavily on dialogue to unravel its mysteries, The Samurai and the Prisoner nonetheless compels with a series of whodunnits that would make Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr proud. The murders are unique puzzles to decipher, including a perplexing locked room mystery and a baffling body swap. Each of the four chapters are punctuated by a Hercule Poirot-esque resolution in which our story’s de facto grey cell-employing sleuth gathers people around to discuss his findings and reveal the true identity of the killer.
Before the mysteries are solved, however, Murashige receives valuable guidance from his prisoner Kanbei in a manner that evokes Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter’s relationship in The Silence of the Lambs. Kanbei, like Hannibal, is a mysterious figure, whose true motives remain unclear for much of the story. How does he know the things he knows? Why is he helping Murashige, his captor, solve these murders? And what is his endgame with all of this? Kanbei may not be the creepy horror movie villain that Sir Anthony Hopkins brought to screen, but he certainly serves a similar role in the film’s story and is comparable to Kunio Mamiya, the antagonist in Kurosawa’s Cure played by Masato Hagiwara.
But the murder mysteries are just one, perhaps more superficial piece of a film that contemplates lofty ideas like the ethics of war, divine punishment, and salvation. Murashige represents an interesting protagonist for a samurai given that he has an aversion to killing. This attribute evidences itself early on, when Murashige defies samurai custom and spares two people. In one sense, he appears to be a progressive leader, willing to redefine what it means to be a samurai, but, in another way, his aversion to killing reflects a far more complex approach to death and leadership.
Kurosawa weaves such existential ideas throughout his film but makes them integral to the bigger picture in the film’s final chapter, which ties together the preceding mysteries. These ideas certainly become a bit muddled due to the density of the dialogue and lose some of their emotional impact as a result, yet they nonetheless render The Samurai and the Prisoner more than just a historical whodunnit. Underneath the explicit anti-war message is commentary on how faith can be manipulated to achieve objectives, how intellect can be both one’s greatest attribute and most striking moral failing, and how murder is murder, regardless of how honorable it may or may not be. Independent of the proximity of Kurosawa’s film’s release to The Odyssey, one can’t help but see The Samurai and the Prisoner as an unexpected companion piece to Christopher Nolan’s epic given the similar themes they explore.
VERDICT: 7.5/10
The Samurai and the Prisoner blends Agatha Christie whodunnits, Akira Kurosawa historical epics, Shakespearean thematic tragedies, and The Silence of the Lambs to make a dense yet absorbing and intricately constructed historical whodunnit from one of Japan’s finest filmmakers. Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s film intrigues with four murder mysteries, each of which the story’s de facto sleuth Murashige is tasked to solve. The mysteries are fascinating with the twists they take and their ability to keep one guessing until the grand Hercule Poirot-esque reveals that punctuate each chapter. Further intrigue comes from the titular prisoner, an enigmatic and mysterious figure played by Masaki Suda, who is a cross between Sir Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lector and Kunio Mamiya, the hypnotic antagonist from 1997’s Cure. Underneath the mysteries, however, are thought-provoking explorations of a number of lofty ideas, including the ethics of war, divine punishment, and leadership. The dialogue-heavy nature of Kurosawa’s film both hinders the impact of these themes and fosters a somewhat challenging and disorienting viewing experience, but a willingness to couple puzzling whodunnits with existential contemplation renders The Samurai and the Prisoner a unique film, one that serves as an unexpected companion piece to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey in the themes that it explores. Far from the kind of film those accustomed to watching movies and scrolling on one’s phone should gravitate toward, Kurosawa’s latest effort challenges as much as it compels, provokes thought on both localized murders to solve and grand existential themes, and affirms the filmmaker as one of Japan’s greatest cinematic talents.