Sword of Desperation: A throwback to the golden age of jidaigeki.

 

For this blog post, we shall be heading back in time to the year 2010. 2010 was a great year in terms of samurai movies as Takashi Miike's remarkable remake of 13 Assassins came out. However, there was also another jidaigeki movie that was released that doesn't get talked about nearly as much and it's a shame because it's a brilliant movie and a throwback to the golden age of the genre. I am course referring to Sword of Desperation, the movie adaptation of Shuhei Fujisawa's splendid novel. 

Set some time around the Edo Period, Sword of Desperation tells the engaging, if somewhat sad tale of swordsman, Kanemi Sanzaemon. Kanemi finds himself in trouble after murdering Lady Renko, the consort and mistress of his daimyo, Tabu Ukyo. He killed her because she was a terrible person and was causing corruption within the fiefdom. She was exploiting her position and closeness to the daimyo in order to spend funds on elaborate kimonos and causing peasants to starve. It is implied that Tsuda is the one responsible for Kanemi's actions regarding Lady Renko, but it is never stated outright. Despite the severity of the crime, with everyone expecting Kanemi to be beheaded for his actions, he is instead ordered under house arrest for a year. 

Ever the stalwart retainer, Kanemi accepts the punishment with poise and dignity. Whilst locked away in a room with boarded up windows and the gate barricaded, we get flashbacks that show just how corrupt and vile Renko truly was. She had any retainers who opposed her selfish will to commit seppuku. After Rio, his niece who looked after the home and fed him during the house arrest, has washed the year's worth of grime off of his back, Kanemi cuts his grown hair, shaves his beard and then walks around the fiefdom unharmed for a year. Upon being summoned by Tsuda three years after his house arrest, Kanemi gets his stipend back and is given the position of Chief Bodyguard. This is unfortunately not as grand a gesture as one might expect with Kanemi soon finding out and coming face to face with danger. 

Ok, so first of all, I love the fact that we see Kanemi's beard and hair grow during the year in which he isolates himself within the locked up shed. He conveys the passage of time quite nicely and also is a clever way of introducing the rather non-linear storytelling. The audience is treated to a great deal of flashbacks which fills us in on the context of his actions and brings us into the world that much more. The movie relies a great deal on these flashbacks as there are so many throughout the movie's runtime, but I believe that the house arrest is a pretty fair way of introducing them as we're not just watching the main character meditating in his room for the whole year. This also lets us know that the pacing is going to be slow, building up to the eventual action gradually. Scenes play out rather slowly, with hardly anyone ever raising their voices, even the villainous characters. There's also some long pauses between lines of dialogue and sometimes no dialogue at all in certain scenes. That might not be to everyone's taste, but it works well enough for Sword of Desperation. It's very much within the same veins as chanbara and jidaigeki movies from years before it, such as the aforementioned golden age of the genre. The composition of scenes, the camera angles and shot types also harken back to those movies. 

The action, although sparse throughout what is a 2 hour movie, is well worth the wait. There are a grand total of two fight scenes and they both come within the latter portion of the movie and not much time is spent between them. So, if you come into the movie expecting an action packed samurai extravaganza, you would be incredibly disappointed. What we do get are two extremely well shot, well choreographed and dramatic action sequences. The first of which is a one on one showdown between two masters of the sword. In a highly engaging duel that features a katana facing off with a wakizashi, Kanemi delivers a competent display of swordsmanship and makes use of a tsuba. Following on from this, we get the truth of the house arrest and the ploy of the actual main villain unfolds. Kanemi is besieged by his former comrades, having to fend them off all by his lonesome. There's some beautiful shots during the action, especially when it spills outwards into the rain. It is within this frantic battle that we finally witness the true Sword of Desperation, Kanemi's secret technique, another thing which harkens back to genre movies of old. 

Of all of the characters in the movie, with the exception of Kanemi himself, I loved and sympathised with Rio the most. Her story is rather tragic and we witness her go from admiring and respecting her uncle to downright falling head over heels for the man. Most of this is shown through facial expressions, although we do get the pair actually ending up spending a night together. Her love for him makes her object to him trying to arrange a new marriage for her after her previous one ended in divorce, a rather taboo thing during the time period. Credit has to be given to Chizuru Ikewaki, whom I believe delivered a delightful performance, having managed to make Rio a truly sympathetic and lovable character. 

Etsushi Toyokawa was magnificent in the main role as Kanemi Sanzaemon. He delivered a stoic, yet captivating performance in the role, coming to life within the latter stages of the movie especially. He is a man one can get behind and root for. 

Overall, I thought that Sword of Desperation was an excellent movie, one that deserves to stand amongst the greats of the chanbara and jidaigeki genres. I would highly recommend it to those who are avid fans of the genre, or if you just find samurais cool.