[YouTube] "The Hiyama Disturbance": 1950s Japanese Morality for When You Have Time

[Overview]

"The Hiyama Disturbance"

This is a 1956 film available on YouTube for a limited two-week period.

[Streaming Period] 2024/7/19 (Fri) 13:00 - 2024/8/2 (Fri) 12:59
[Synopsis] Depicts the exploits of Soma Daisaku as he stands alone against the tyranny of the Nanbu Domain. Director Tatsuo Yamada's debut film.
[Plot] In 1807, the Nanbu and Tsugaru domains in the Tohoku region were feuding over the Hiyama border. One day, the Tsugaru Domain arbitrarily removed the boundary markers indicating Nanbu Domain ownership and installed new ones reading "Tsugaru Domain Hiyama." When Tomoemon Ozaki (Shin Takemura), a senior retainer of the Nanbu Domain, protested this, he was shot to death. The Tsugaru Domain, having colluded with the Shogunate, made the occupation of Hiyama a fait accompli. Enraged, Ozaki's son, Hidenoshin (Kanjuro Arashi), vows to reclaim Hiyama and avenge his father alone.
[Staff/Cast] Screenplay: Kazuhiko Kakei, Masayoshi Onuki; Director: Tatsuo Yamada; Main Cast: Kanjuro Arashi, Ryuzaburo Ogasawara, Megumi Hibino, Jun Tazaki
Released 1956, 81 minutes, Black & White, CinemaScope

Full Movie ↓(Shintoho [Official] Channel)

*The above is a quote from the official channel, but is the "tyranny of the Nanbu Domain" in the [Synopsis] a mistake for "tyranny of the Tsugaru Domain"?

[Evaluation]

As I wrote in my essay on Yukio Mishima's "Kyoko's House," I am currently focusing on Japan in the 1950s.

Modern Japanese people tend to think that everything changed with the defeat in 1945, but that is not the case.

Until the 1950s, Japanese people largely carried over the worldview from before and during the war.

It was in the 1960s, when Japan entered a period of high economic growth, that the Japanese people changed.

If you don't understand that, you cannot understand why Yukio Mishima left behind masterpieces in the 1950s and why he despaired and died in the 1960s.

This 1956 film, "The Hiyama Disturbance," also reminds us of what the Japanese people lost after the 1960s.

This is a film based on the "Soma Daisaku Incident," which concerns the feud between the Nanbu and Tsugaru domains during the Edo period.

"Soma Daisaku" stories were popular in kodan storytelling and the like, and it seems hundreds of films were made about it before the war, but this is said to be the last one, and none have been made since.

What is there is the spirit of the samurai and the instinct to fight; there is no pretentious leftist ideology about "standing with the weak" or "pacifism."

Despite the low budget, the film itself is very well made.

I was moved by how pre-war superstar Kanjuro Arashi gave his all for the debut film of a young director.

His delivery is crisp and clear, just as the phrase 'vivid diction' suggests. The scene where he escapes through water while bullets rain down, wearing nothing but his undergarments (though they aren't technically pants), is famous.

This is one of the later works of Arakan as a sword-fighting star (in the 60s, his later years as an actor, he became more of a character actor).

However, it seems that by then, films like this were no longer being appreciated.

After all, films like 'Seven Samurai' (1954) already existed.

The films of Tatsuo Yamada and Arakan were also apparently almost entirely ignored by critics.

They were treated with disdain, with journalists not even coming to press screenings because they were 'Shintoho, B-movies, or just entertainment' (Wikipedia 'Tatsuo Yamada').

But for me, born in the 1960s, it felt fresh.

It's an 80-minute, quick-to-watch entertainment piece, so please check it out if you have the time.

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