Love and Honor

I love the Zatoichi films and have seen all but the very latest rebooting of the series ("Zatoichi the Last"--which is not available yet in the US). So it's obvious that I am a fan of the movies. However, I will also be the first to admit that they are completely ridiculous. After all, a completely blind swordsman who is able to take on dozens of opponents in each film and win is completely impossible...at least on this planet! Because of this, it's great to see "Love and Honor"--a Japanese film with a blind swordsman that is actually believable!!

The film begins with Shinnojo Mimura working for his lord as a food taster. One day, the unthinkable happens and Shinnojo is poisoned. While this ends up saving his master's life, it also ends up nearly killing Shinnojo and leaving him blind! And, as sometimes occurs in the tough feudal society, Shinnojo is left without a purpose and the prospect of losing his income. Some thanks for service to his master, huh?! However, uncharacteristic of many samurai films, soon Shinnojo learns that his master has not forgotten him and will keep giving him his original salary. So how does this end up resulting in Shinnojo fighting someone even though he's blind?! Well, I don't want to ruin the story--just watch this one.

The film has many, many strengths. It is a wonderful story, has a very thrilling conclusion and a touching love story--albeit an odd one! Well performed all around and one of the better samurai films I have seen--and I have seen quite a few. Well worth your time.

This is a really good film. Slow paced, just like real life in the Edo jidai. A good story, excellent acting and it gives good insight to the daily life of a low level samurai. There's a great atmosphere with not flashy but realistic scenery.

If you are looking for lots of action and swordplay, this isn't for you. But I found this film strangely moving and quite beautifully arranged.

Well worth seeing.

A young samurai, married to a beautiful woman, accidentally becomes blind for life. This is the intimate story of what happens to this couple in mid-nineteenth-century Japan. Finding personal honor, love for oneself and for the woman one loves, finding a purpose for living. Director Yamada tells us this with an increasingly engaging and intimate narrative style. In my opinion very refined in the feelings it wants to convey, accurate in the scenic reconstructions of daily life of the time. Worth seeing if you liked, also by Yamada, Twilight of the Samurai (2002) even if it does not reach the depths of story, feelings and direction.

A low-ranking samurai, jaded with his dull daily routine, finds himself tested to the core when his food-tasting assignment leaves him blind.

Yoji Yamada's project exploring samurai in transition expands, having had an outing in Twilight Samurai. That movie had Hiroyuki Sanada in the starring role, and the constantly under-achieving Takuya Kimura was always going to be a hard sell in this role for some. However, he stands up competently here. Shinnojo wakens blind and immediately becomes suicidal. He is granted a healthy stipend of rice from the authorities, and the slow dawning of its true price inexorably works on Shinnojo, eventually becoming too much to bear. This delicately paced transition is plotted by Kimura's expressions, from self-loathing to acceptance to vengeful warrior, with loving husband always present.

Kaori Momoi parades her usual quirky genius, but Rei Dan as loving, loyal wife Kayo is the stand-out performance here. Kayo's burden proves equal to her husband's, and Dan earns our sympathy as the compromised spouse.

The film doesn't quite achieve the delicacy and pathos of Twilight Samurai, but it does add another dimension to the humanistic portrayal of the samurai that is Yamada's trope. For that reason alone, Love and Honour is worth checking out.

Yoji Yamada's appropriately dubbed 'Love and Honor' is a samurai's story of just that; Takuya Kimura is Mimura, a samurai who is used to test food for poisoning by eating it in order to prevent the lord of his clan from being poisoned. Mimura becomes blind after being fed an off-season food that can become poisonous if not prepared properly. Unable to provide for himself, Mimura becomes suicidal. His loving wife Kayo declares her support for him, offering to follow him into death. Mimura is convinced to continue on living, but with Mimura unable to provide for he and his family, his wife is left to find a way to support them. In this classic tale of love and honor, follow a blind man's struggles to find peace of mind as he tries to follow his samurai code.