The Hidden Blade

Maybe you can’t trust my comments on THE HIDDEN BLADE, Yoji Yamada’s follow-up to THE TWILIGHT SAMURAI. You see, I’m a sucker for samurai movies – I have been since THE SEVEN SAMURAI. Feudal Japan captures my imagination: the code of Bushido, the architecture, the stark aesthetic of Kendo. The last time I was in Japan, I must have logged 500 miles on the local trains in the greater Tokyo-Yokohama megalopolitan area. A guy can burn out on Europe’s gothic cathedrals pretty quickly, but there’s no such thing as one too many Zen shrines.

THE HIDDEN BLADE tells the tale of Katagiri, a samurai living at the end of the Edo period. It’s less than a decade before the fall of the Shogun and Meiji restoration, and Edo’s long traditions of honor and duty have become more a tool for controlling the samurai class than the living code of the Shogunate. Katagiri believes in these traditions to the core of his being: he takes pride in the fact that his father had committed seppuku for an error that was the man’s responsibility, but not his fault. As Katagiri comes to realize that he serves a system that is unworthy of him, his life becomes increasingly complicated. One of his boyhood comrades and fellow samurai has been convicted of treason, casting the shadow of suspicion on all the samurai of his rural village. Additionally, Katagiri find himself at the center of a local scandal involving himself and an angelic servant girl he rescues from an abusive household.

As audience members, we come to care for Katagiri and his circle. These are honorable people in dishonorable times, making the best decisions of which they are able. The film takes the time to fully invest us in its world and its people, and it moves at a deliberate (though not dull) pace that both evokes its era and adds impact to the swift decisions that can mean the difference between life and death. Yamada films THE HIDDEN BLADE in a graceful, formal manner, calling attention to himself only through the deftness of his touch and the grace of his choices.

Sometimes, a movie seeks only to pass the time. Sometimes, a movie seeks only to entertain. Sometimes, a movie aspires to art. THE HIDDEN BLADE is the latter, and it succeeds.

That is, if you can trust me.