While earlier samurai period pieces were more dramatic rather than action-based, samurai movies post World War II have become more action-based, with darker and more violent characters. Post war samurai epics tended to portray psychologically or physically scarred warriors. Akira Kurosawa stylized and exaggerated death and violence in samurai epics. His samurai, and many others portrayed in film, were solitary figures, more often concerned with concealing their martial abilities, rather than showing them off.
Historically, the genre is usually set during the Tokugawa era (1600–1868). The samurai film hence often focuses on the end of an entire way of life for the samurai: many of the films deal with masterless ronin, or samurai dealing with changes to their status resulting from a changing society.
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Samurai films were constantly made into the early 1970s, but by then, overexposure on television, the aging of the big stars of the genre, and the continued decline of the mainstream Japanese film industry put a halt to most of the production of this genre.
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Popular characters in samurai films
Zatoichi
A burly masseur and yakuza with short hair, he is a skilled swordsman who fights using only his hearing. While less known in the West, he is arguably the most famous chanbara character in Japan.
Crimson Bat
Four movies were made about another blind samurai, Oichi aka "the Crimson Bat". Her character was a blind female sword fighter, and made in response to the huge success of Zatoichi.
Nemuri Kyoshirō
Nemuri Kyoshirō, the master of the Engetsu (Full Moon Cut) sword style, was a wandering "lone wolf" warrior plagued by the fact that he was fathered in less than honorable circumstance by a "fallen" Portuguese priest who had turned to worshipping Satan and a Japanese noblewoman whom he had seduced and raped as part of a Black Mass and who had committed suicide after Kyoshiro was born. As a result, Kyoshiro despised both Christianity (which he considered weak and hypocritical) and the Shogunate government (which he considered corrupt).
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Miyamoto Musashi
A number of films were also made about Miyamoto Musashi, a famed historical warrior and swordsman, including a three movie series about his life starring Toshiro Mifune and a six movie series about his life starring Yorozuya Kinnosuke.
Lone Wolf and Cub
Lone Wolf and Cub, the tale of a samurai traveling Japan with his son in a wooden pram (which is armed and on occasion used in combat) was made into a six-film series starring Wakayama Tomisaburo as Ogami Itto and a live action television series called Kozure Ōkami (1973 to 1976) starring actor Yorozuya Kinnosuke as Ogami Ittō.
The Ronin with No Name
Sanjuro, played by Toshiro Mifune, is the wandering ronin character appearing in two of Kurosawa's films, Yojimbo and Sanjuro. The character is nameless, but when required gives the name Sanjuro (which means "thirty-ish male"), and then makes up a surname. Mifune later played analogous roles as a nameless wandering ronin called Yojimbo ("Bodyguard") in two films released in 1970: Incident at Blood Pass, and the Zatoichi film Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo.
The Yojimbo figure is sometimes referred to as "the ronin with no name", as a reference to the "Man with No Name" character portrayed by Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy" of Spaghetti Western films.
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The Bored/Crescent-Scarred Hatamoto (aka The Idle Vassal)
Played on film by Utaemon Ichikawa, in made-for-TV movies by Kin'ya Kitaōji (Ichikawa's son, who also appeared with his father in some of the films) and in a television series by Hideki Takahashi, this series related the adventures of Saotome Mondonosuke, a hatamoto or direct vassal of Shogun Tsunayoshi, whose 'Crescent-scar' on his forehead signifies his right to kill in the name of the Shogun and rid Japan of corruption and evil. In a series of over twenty films, Saotome craves action to fight the boredom he feels when not pitting his sword skill against those who would corrupt Japan.
Tange Sazen
Tange Samanosuke, a Sōma clan samurai, is attacked and mutilated as a result of betrayal, losing his right eye and right arm, and becomes a nihilistic ronin, using the pseudonym "Sazen". He's been played in numerous films by Denjirō Ōkōchi (大河内傳次郎 Ōkōchi Denjirō), Tsumasaburō Bandō, Ryūtarō Ōtomo, Ryūnosuke Tsukigata, Kinnosuke Nakamura, and Tetsurō Tanba
Himura Kenshin
Himura Kenshin (緋村 剣心), known as Kenshin Himura in the English-language anime dubs, is the protagonist from the Rurouni Kenshin. Kenshin is a former legendary assassin known as "Hitokiri Battōsai" (人斬り抜刀斎). Kenshin wanders the countryside of Japan offering protection and aid to those in need, as atonement for the murders he once committed as an assassin. In Tokyo, he meets a young woman named Kamiya Kaoru, who invites him to live in her dojo despite learning about Kenshin's past. Throughout the series, Kenshin begins to establish lifelong relationships with many people, including ex-enemies, while dealing with his fair share of enemies, new and old. The character is portrayed by actor Takeru Satoh in three live-action versions of the story (Rurouni Kenshin, Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Taika-hen and Rurouni Kenshin: Densetsu no Saigo-hen) directed by Keishi Ōtomo.
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As aristocrats for centuries, samurai developed their own cultures that influenced Japanese culture as a whole. The culture associated with the samurai such as the tea ceremony, monochrome ink painting, rock gardens and poetry was adopted by warrior patrons throughout the centuries 1200-1600. These practices were adapted from the Chinese arts. Zen monks introduced them to Japan and they were allowed to florish the power of powerful warrior elites. Musō Soseki (1275-1351) was a Zen monk who was advisor to both Emperor Go-Daigo and General Ashikaga Takauji (1304-58). Musō, as well as other monks, served as a political and cultural diplomat between Japan and China. Musō was particularly well known for his garden design. Another Ashikaga patron of the arts was Yoshimasa. His cultural advisor, the Zen monk Zeami, introduced the tea ceremony to him. Previously, tea had been used primarily for Buddhist monks to stay awake during meditation.
Japanese swords (samurai sword) are the weapons that have come to be synonymous with the samurai. Ancient Japanese swords from the Nara period (Chokutō) featured a straight blade, by the late 900s curved tachi appeared, followed by the uchigatana and ultimately the katana. Smaller commonly known companion swords are the wakizashi and the tantō. Wearing a long sword (katana) or (tachi) together with a smaller sword such as a wakizashi or tantō became the symbol of the samurai, this combination of swords is referred to as a daishō (literally "big and small"). During the Edo period only samurai were allowed to wear a daisho. A longer blade known as the nodachi was also used in the fourteenth century, though primarily used by samurai on the ground.
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