SAMURAI RESURRECTION (2003)

                                                          

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*                                                                                                                            I read with interest that Kinji Fukasaku, who directed the 1981 adaptation of the novel "Reincarnation from Hell," also adapted the novel for the stage. Though I enjoyed the 1981 movie, I did find some sections rather "stagey" in their presentation. In contrast, this 2003 adaptation by one Hideyuki Hirayama is more purely cinematic in its orientations, with a lot more closeups and crane shots, and even a little bit of CGI.                                                       

                                                              

The setup is essentially the same as in the 1981 film, with some odd added details. The soldiers of the Tokugawa Shogunate wipe out several thousand Japanese Christians judged to be in rebellion, though the 2003 writers add the odd, possibly inaccurate detail that the peasants attacked the religious community first because of "Christian persecution." This time the leader of the Christians, Amakuza Shiro (Yosuke Kubozuka), confronts the soldiers who come to kill him, and he somehow bewitches the captain into slaying the other five soldiers before the man beheads Amakuza and then kills himself. This addition doesn't track well-- is the viewer supposed to think Amakuza has some sort of Satanic power before he's killed? In any case, Amakuza dies with his followers, but after a few years he reincarnates as an angry ghost, intent upon destroying the Shogunate.                                                                                             

 Amakuza proceeds to recruit other angry spirits for his revenge, although the scripters exclude the character of Gracia Hokosowa and substitute some other evil female ghost who didn't seem to have much of an identity. The other legendary figures of Musashi and Inchun appear, as do their opponents in the Yagyu family, father Tajima and son Jubei (Koichi Sato). I thought the actors did well with the roles, but the characters aren't laid out as well as in the Fukasaku movie, so the intermixing of the various legendary figures has less effect. Oddly, though the timeframe is still the 1600s, there are three new female characters who are sword-mistresses, and I can't help wondering if the filmmakers injected these characters for some political end. Yet only one of the three, a ghost who turns against her kindred, has a moderately dramatic scene, so if those characters weren't in the novel and were included just for more female representation, it was extra effort for little effect.