Tateshi Danpei

Ganjirô Nakamura is a minor member of Raizô Ichikawa's acting troupe around the turn of the 20h Century. He is also the troupe's fencing master, what we would call a fight choreographer. Ichikawa is tryng for a new style of fight choreography, graphic and realistic. Nakamura, trained in the old ways, has a hard time understanding what is desired, and finds himself pushed out of the troupe, although he never quite realizes it.

It's based on a 1950 movie of the same name co-written by Kurosawa. Offered as a tragedy, it looks symbolically at those rendered out of date in a changing Japan. While other film makers considered the issues of survival and adapting to the changes that had been sweeping Japan since the Meiji restoration, Kurosawa came from a samurai family, and he saw the sadness of those changes, and unhappiness of those who could not change with them. They remained dedicated to the ideals of the past and died with them.