1954 Winner, Gate of Hell

Gate of Hell

Director:  Teinosuke Kinugasa

Distributed by:  Daiei Film

Released:  October 1953

Country:  Japan

“He soon felt that the fulfillment of his desires gave him only one grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. This fulfillment showed him the eternal error men make in imagining that their happiness depends on the realization of their desires.”

― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Gate of Hell is a title that sounds like a horror movie, but it isn’t, unless you consider Man’s quick willingness to abandon his morality to be horrific.  Gate of Hell is about love, or rather, about one thinks love is rather than what it actually is.

Two stories came to mind when I watched this film.  One is of Salome in the New Testament, who after doing a strip tease of some sort, was promised by her creepy stepfather Herod anything up to half the kingdom.  He was so heated up by her gyrations that just stuffing a few shekels down her skivvies wouldn’t do, and it cost John the Baptist his head.  The other story I thought of was Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, a tale about a married woman who falls in love at a ball with a military man named Count Vronsky.  They are so into each other that they abandon all they care for just to be with each other, thinking love will conquer all.  Spoiler alert:  It doesn’t.

Kazuo Hasegawa as Morito

In 1954’s Best Foreign Film, Gate of Hell, centers around a Japanese samurai named Morito, who at first appears to be the embodiment of loyalty.  His brother is a leader of an uprising against a 13^th century Japanese emperor.  Morito refuses to join the rebellion and is aghast at his brother’s behavior.  While the fighting rages, Morito is assigned to protect and move a lovely royal miss named Lady Kesa.  Morito sees her and reacts like Herod and Vronsky did to their respective lust-at-first-sights.

The battle ends and the royal family’s forces come out on top.  For his loyalty and bravery, especially for siding against his own brother, the emperor tells Morito he can ask for anything he wants and his wish will be granted.  Morito ponders this offer for about three seconds and says the prize he wants is none other than Lady Kesa.  The ruler confers with his pals and chucklingly says to Morito, “Well, you are a little late to the party—didn’t you see the rock on her finger?  She’s married.”  Morito’s response is pretty simple:  “So?” 

Lady Kesa, the object of Morito's desires

Morito makes a pest of himself and eventually he is given permission by the ruler to discuss the issue with Lady Kesa, but if she is not interested in leaving her man, a nice enough guy named Waturu, he has to take a cold shower or find a more available lady to exact his urges upon.  Morito doesn’t really seem to care what Lady Keso thinks; all he knows is she will be his—oh, yes—she will be his.  The problem is, Lady Keso kind of likes her husband.  Morito meets him and frankly he seems like a pretty good guy, but he is in the way and so he decides something has to be done about the "Waturu Problem."

Gate of Hell is a pretty film, full of color and movement.  It’s a fairly short film, clocking in at 86 minutes, but that underscores the tightness of the story—there is no time wasted on subplots or characters that don’t mean much.  Both main players do their jobs well-- Kazuo Hasegawa as Morito certainly isn’t a good-looking fellow, and you get the feeling it would indeed take the granting of a wish by an emperor for him to get a lovely woman for a wife.  Machiko Kyō, who also plays an important role in Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (winner of the 1952 Best Foreign Film award), plays Lady Keso, a woman who didn’t ask for this attention.  The movie is a simple tale of a man allowing his weaknesses to get the best of him—his personal quality of loyalty gets chucked in a hurry the second he sees a pretty face.  Morito isn’t the first to make that choice and he certainly will not be the last.

Asking the Emperor for Lady Keso

The Title:  地獄門, also called Jigokumon.  It’s a physical place in the film to be protected, but Morito’s letting his passions dictate his behavior is what will lead him to be willing to go through the proverbial gate into the dark side.

The culture:  This is Japan’s first color film export and it’s a treat to look at.  With Rashomon winning Best Foreign Film a few years earlier and Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto winning the following year, this truly was a golden age of Japanese cinema.  Also important during this period are directors Kenji Mizoguchi (who directed the classics Ugetsu [1953] and Sansho the Bailiff [1954]) and Yasujirō Ozu (1953’s Tokyo Story).

Agenda danger:  Certainly there is a message here, and unfortunately and tragically, Morito doesn’t learn it until the end of the film.

Best Picture that year:  On the Waterfront.

Rating:  The aforementioned films by Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, and Ozu certainly are more noteworthy and important when it comes to Japanese cinema.  But Gate of Hell is well-directed, with great performances and a succinct story.  It’s a cautionary tale about subject matter that will apply to any culture and time, as long as there are people who confuse love and lust.  And there always will be.

1955 Winner, Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto

Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto

Director:        Hiroshi Inagaki

Distributed by:  Toho Studios

Released:  November 1955 (U.S.)

Country:  Japan

From an American perspective, there are few well-known actors who don’t speak English as their primary language.  Americans know folks like Max von Sydow, Gerard Depardieu, and Sophia Loren, but mostly because we have seen them in American films.  Yes, Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune did a few American projects—Grand Prix (1966), Steven Spielberg’s 1941 (1979), and the miniseries Shogun (1981 come to mind—but he is a star for his Japanese work, especially with the great director Akira Kurosawa.  Mifune is truly a special actor, as anyone who has seen The Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), or Yojimbo (1961) knows, but from 1954 to 1956, Mifune worked with Director Hiroshi Inagaki to make the highly-regarded Samurai Trilogy, the first of which, Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto, was awarded a Special/Honorary Academy Award for outstanding foreign film, the last time the award was given non-competitively.

Mifune not buying the damsel-in-distress bit

The story starts with the end of a battle.  Takezo, played by Mifune, and his buddy Matahachi are young up-and-comers, ambitious warriors who want to make names for themselves.  Unfortunately for them, they are on the losing side of the Battle of Sekigahara, a real battle that took place in 1600 Japan.  Being on the losing side means they are on the run, hiding from the victors.  They take up with a mother and daughter who are somehow mixed up with a gang of thieves.  Takezo fights off the bad guys, protecting these two damsels-in-distress. 

Only these women aren’t quite as innocent as they seem.  Almost right away the daughter hits on Takezo, but he resists his urges because of his samurai code, not wanting to dishonor himself.  So now with the daughter rejected, her widowed mother decides to take a crack at him.  Takezo essentially tells the mother that he didn’t want the daughter, so why would he want her, and what’s the deal with all the horny women around here?  In this case, the spurned woman takes things personally, and tells everyone, including Matahachi, that Takezo sexually assaulted her.  Matahachi has a serious girl, Otsu, back home waiting for him, but has had his eye on the daughter and is willing to be less honorable with her when she shifts her interests to him.  He takes the women’s side against his friend, and Takezo, now on the run, thinks his chum has turned on him.  This eventually leads to Takezo being justified in setting his sights on Otsu.  I mean, she's fair game now, right?  As for Matahachi, before long he is wishing he had kept his proverbial samurai sword sheathed.  He has to marry the annoying girl and deal with a nagging mother-in-law.

Yojimbo:  Mifune is much more fun to watch as a ronin

As the title indicates, Samurai I is the first film, and so the story is going to be left unfinished.  The film is entertaining enough as a set-up, but I left unsatisfied, waiting for another time to catch Parts I and II.  Watching Mifune act is always a pleasure, but it seems to me his potential is untapped in this film, admittedly allowing for growth of the character in the next two films.  Samurai I is a good-looking film, with colorful fight scenes and good photography, and the trilogy was an influence on Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill movies (2003-4).  With the caveat of only having seen the first film, I couldn’t help but think it didn’t compare well to Kurosawa’s samurai films, even though the ones with Mifune are all black and white. Color cannot take the place of masterful direction.

The Title:  宮本武蔵.  The trilogy is based on a Japanese novel from the 1930’s. The titular character, Musashi Miyamoto, who goes by Takezo in this film, was a real person.  He identified himself as Shinmen Musashi-no-Kami Fujiwara no Harunobu in his own book, The Book of Five Rings, written about 1645.  Miyamoto is considered Japan’s most famous and greatest swordsman, probably because he wrote a book about it.  Marketing is everything, even in feudal era Japan.

The culture:  The philosophy of the Samurai is on full display, before the modernization of Japanese society and Western influence.  Incidentally, a “ronin” is a samurai without a master, and is really what the Mifune characters in Seven Samurai and Yojimbo are.

Agenda danger:  Takezo and his pal Matahachi definitely get the short end of the stick in regards to their dealings with the sneaky mother/daughter combo they help.  The false rape accusation doesn’t put the women in the greatest of lights, but Otsu balances out any misogyny the viewer may feel coming on, by being an all-around Japanese girl you’d want to bring home to your mama-san.

Best Picture that year:  Marty.  Ma!  I'm ugly, Ma!

Rating:  I feel like I have to give this one an I for Incomplete.  I’m not sure why the Academy chose to honor this film with the series just getting started—imagine Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring winning Best Picture and not The Return of the King.  Still, if you are looking for some violence with a little romance thrown in and some great acting (like say, From Here to Eternity), you’ll enjoy this one.