Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji

Tomu Uchida's 1955 Japanese film follows a samurai travelling the roads of the Edo period with two servants, and the people they meet along the way. It is built as a road movie; an officer chasing a thief, a lost child and a woman being taken away to be sold all join the same party. Uchida had been an important director before the war; he went to Manchuria in 1942 and stayed in China until 1953. This was his film on returning to Japan, made with the support of colleagues including Ozu and Ito. The story is light and observational for most of its length, which is exactly why the eruption of violence at the end is shattering. It inverts the template of the swordplay film. Who it's for: viewers who like Japanese period cinema and road movies. Who it's not for: anyone wanting constant action, or troubled by an abrupt change of tone.