A Lança Ensanguentada

I had never heard of Japanese director Tomu Uchida prior to reading about a retrospective held at London's National Film Theatre in December 2007 but, my interest ignited, I quickly landed this film in my collection. What we have here, essentially, is a tragicomic road movie: the narrative – about a pilgrimage to the titular landmark by a disgraced samurai (prone to violent drunken binges) and his two dim-witted warrior-servants – rambles amiably along in a leisurely and mostly droll vein until the unexpected and electrifyingly bloodthirsty finale. Through the striking use of sweeping camera movement and fast cutting, we are introduced to the trio of protagonists and the major supporting characters right from the very first sequence; the comic highlight comes around the midpoint when an abandoned boy (who joined their party after befriending the lancer) disrupts a solemn tea-drinking ceremony enacted by three noblemen in an open field while naturally relieving himself in the nearby bushes. The second half grows more somber with the episodes of the capture of a notorious tattooed thief disguised as a pilgrim and an old man forced to sell off his daughter as collateral for a measly loan. Nothing however really prepares us for the remarkably 'clumsy' climax (this is no choreographed ballet of violence) in which the lancer single-handedly dispatches the men who had killed his master merely for daring to drink publicly with his subordinate. It is also worth mentioning that several distinguished Japanese film-makers (including Yasujiro Ozu) helped in the making of this film which was Uchida's comeback after a decade spent in China.