Three Outlaw Samurai

Shiba is a masterless samurai walking the road. At a mill he comes across three peasants; the men have taken the daughter of the local lord. Their aim is not ransom: they want to get a petition to the lord describing how the village is crushed by taxes and have found no other way. Shiba listens and chooses his side. Two more samurai work for the lord; both find the business dirty and change sides in time. The three stand with the peasants. The lord's men come and the peasants are afraid. Hideo Gosha directs; it is his first feature. Tetsuro Tamba, Isamu Nagato and Mikijiro Hira are in the cast. It is a Japanese production. The film came out of a television series of the same name; Gosha had directed the series and the feature tells what came before it. The matter it treats is to whom loyalty is owed; each of the three decides for himself and none claims heroism. The narrative does not idealise the peasants; they are afraid, they give up, and at one point they betray. The fights are short and hard; the swordwork does not run to display. The black and white photography and the use of space are close to the classics of the genre. Its limit is scale; the budget is small and the narrative plain. Another limit is the ending; the narrative grants no victory and nothing changes. Who it is for: viewers who like samurai films and Japanese cinema of the sixties. Who it is not for: it is bleak, short, and the characters' pasts are withheld.