Rating: NR | Runtime: 147 minutes
Release Date: June 19th, 20226 (Japan) / July 31st, 2026 (USA)
Studio: Shochiku / Janus Films
Director(s): Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Writer(s): Kiyoshi Kurosawa / Honobu Yonezawa (novel)

Attachment always results in pain.

As the cruelty of Oda Nobunaga’s reign leads to what Araki Murashige (Masahiro Motoki), his Setssu province retainer, believes to be unnecessary bloodshed, the latter decides to rebel with the assistance of likeminded clans. While the fight therefore takes on an air of “good versus evil” insofar as pitting a madman loyal to nothing but power against a benevolent leader in search of peace, this warring era’s samurai customs has many seeing it as “strong versus weak.”

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s adaptation of Honobu Yonezawa’s novel The Samurai and the Prisoner proves timely with our own prevalence of “strong men” leadership equating destruction with strength despite that destruction only leading to disarray. In a perfect world, everyone would rally behind Murashige’s promise of sanity via an alternative to the status quo that benefits the meek. Why side with a man like Oda who would kill you on a whim instead of a life free from fear?

The answer is, of course, that very fear. If you choose Murashige and lose, Oda will definitely execute you. If you choose him and win, what’s to say the power doesn’t corrupt him as well? So many of our decisions come down to routine. Our fear of things getting worse seems destined to defeat our hope that they can be better every single time because we’ve been conditioned by religion and the state to follow rules at threat of punishment if we want salvation.

It’s why Kuroda Kanbei’s (Masaki Suda) words towards the end of the film linger. He gives voice to the idea that our impulse for survival and greed reigns supreme above reason to the point where doing the right thing invariably leads to our demise. We will select the “carrot” for relief and remain loyal to its provider as long as he secures our wellbeing. Without also wielding the “stick” to maintain that loyalty, however, a single seed of doubt risks undoing everything.

This the position Murashige finds himself in when Kanbei arrives as an emissary to an ally of Oda. Murashige hopes to persuade Kanbei to join his side because he trusts his intelligence to understand what he’s trying to accomplish, but those smarts are exactly why the latter must refuse. Yes, it’s an admirable goal worthy of the attempt, but it’s also a delusion when confronted with the facts of the war. So, as samurai tradition dictates, Kanbei accepts his fate to be beheaded.

Except that’s not what happens. Despite all of Murashige’s advisors imploring him to do it so he doesn’t anger God and Kanbei begging for it too so Oda won’t assume he was a traitor and murder his only son for it, the clan leader throws the emissary into his dungeon. Murashige believes he’s showing strength by sparing the life of someone who could benefit him in the future. Others see it as weak—a samurai who no longer has the stomach to fulfill his duty.

The narrative unfolds through four seasonal chapters from this point. Each brings with it a murder mystery to be solved that proves both angles correct. The only way Murashige is able to solve these crimes is through the help of Kanbei playing Poirot-in-chains. But the crimes themselves also sow unrest in the people via divine punishment and his troops with each act undermining the leader’s will while Oda’s reach increases. Can Murashige right the ship in time?

These investigations supply a fun bit of intrigue in isolation. They each carry a potential supernatural element that gets everyone’s minds racing as Murashige seeks to cut through the artifice and reveal the grounded truth behind them. We meet his trusted lieutenant in Joe Odagiri’s Juemon, his confidant and wife in Yuriko Yoshitaka’s Chiyoho, the leaders of two allied clans with a desire to attack Oda head-on, and others with varying degrees of loyalty.

All the while Kanbei sits waiting for his next visit to quickly decipher the truth and disseminate it to Murashige in cryptic messages that simultaneously help him find the perpetrator and set the stage for the castle’s ever weakening state of invincibility. And since one such visit exposes how Kanbei’s cunning can manipulate his captor into unwittingly doing his own bidding, who’s to say there isn’t a more elaborate plan being hatched in the background?

The beauty of The Samurai and the Prisoner is how many layers of deception there are. Even when you figure one out, it’s a red herring shrouding another in shadow. Everyone on-screen has their own motives and they will follow them to the death if they must. Some are in service of Murashige. Some are positioned against him. Some don’t take him into consideration at all since he’s but a man caught in the same battle between “Paradise” and “Hell” as the rest.

That’s where you see why Kiyoshi Kurosawa chose to take a detour into historical fiction period drama after making a career as a horror icon. Sure, there aren’t any actual ghosts involved, but the specter of Buddha looms large to show how easy mankind can manipulate and be manipulated by invisible forces. How quick we are to let faith get in the way of facts. Or tradition in the way of morality. If Murashige won’t do what’s needed, others will in his or God’s name.

It’s an intricate plot that gets you so wrapped up in the individual mysteries that it’s easy to miss the bigger picture alongside Murashige since there are more pressing matters at-hand. Motoki is great in the lead role with Suda providing a wonderful foil as the only other person who understands his reasonings while also being the only person smart enough to gain an upper hand. The production value is high too even as so much of the film is characters talking in a room.

Yes, there’s an ambush scene and harrowing flashback to Murashige’s last straw with Oda, but the two-and-a-half-hour runtime is mostly a 16th century Japanese police procedural. The way each chapter intertwines with the next ensures it never gets redundant, though. These “murders of the week” include the war’s changing winds to facilitate the crime while knocking Murashige off-balance before a final hope play to salvage what’s always been an idealistic fantasy.

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Masaki Suda and Masahiro Motoki in THE SAMURAI AND THE PRISONER; courtesy of Janus Films.