© Toei
Courtesy International Film Festival Rotterdam

(Sake to onna to yari). This outrageously entertaining chambara film is perhaps Uchida's strongest critique of samurai codes, a ferocious and often funny satire of such ideals as loyalty to clan, the glory of battle, and the great bravery of committing seppuku. A retainer who goes by the alias Kurodo of the Spear becomes increasingly disenchanted with the intrigue, corruption, and incessant slaughter of warrior society, and, after drunkenly surviving an attempt at ritual suicide, withdraws into the country to a life of simple pleasures: food, drink, family. His quiet rebellion soon ends, though; forced out of seclusion, Kurodo unleashes a sluice of slaughter in the Battle of Sekigahara. Whether this frenzied finale affirms or contradicts the foregoing critique is debatable, but the film's masterful control of tone, from broad comedy to pointed satire to tragedy, is not. Especially striking is the Mizoguchean sense of inevitability and suffering in Uchida's treatment of the two actresses who love Kurodo.

—James Quandt

• Written by Masato Ide, from a novel by Chogoro Kaionji. Photographed by Motoya Washio. With Ryutaro Otomo, Chikage Awashima, Yataro Kurokawa, Isao Yamagata. (99 mins, In Japanese with English subtitles, Color, 35mm, From National Film Center, Tokyo, permission Toei)