55th Anniversary of the Samurai Rebellion

On June 3, 1967, Masaki Kobayashi's film "Jôi-uchi: Hairyô tsuma shimatsu 上意討ち 拝領妻始末 (Samurai Rebellion)" was released in wide release in Japan. A little earlier, on May 27, the film was presented as part of the so-called "roadshow release" - a kind of advertising campaign, when the film is shown in a limited number of the most prestigious cinemas.

Kinopoisk gives another name for this film - "Risen". But, given that the rebel in this film was not alone, in my opinion, the English translation of the Japanese title - "Samurai Rebellion" is more correct. However, Donald Ritchie, a well-known American film critic and specialist in Japanese culture, emphasized that the use of the word "samurai" in the title of this film is a marketing ploy by American distributors to attract a male audience. In fact, the original title of the film and the story of the same name by Yasuhiko Takiguchi, which served as the basis for the film's script, "Receive the Wife" - emphasizes the female aspect of the work.

In early September 1967, Masaki Kobayashi's "Samurai Rebellion" was presented at the Venice International Film Festival. Not being nominated for the main prize of the festival, Kobayashi's film, however, received the FIPRESCI award. In March 1968, "Samurai Rebellion" participated in the International Film Festival in Mar del Plata, Argentina. Here, Kobayashi's picture was nominated for the main prize, but the victory was awarded to Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde". The Czechoslovak film "Marketa Lazarová" by Frantisek Vlácil, the Soviet film "Three Poplars on Plyushchikha" by Tatyana Lioznova, the American film "Incident" by Larry Pierce were among the losers along with the Kobayashi film.

Kobayashi's picture did not have other serious achievements at international film festivals, but film critics rated the film extremely highly. True, Roger Ebert did not immediately give the film what it deserved. In his first review of the film, which he wrote in 1971, he rated the film three out of four stars. But even in this review, he noted: ""Samurai Rebellion," ... is as extreme a samurai film as I've seen in both senses (the ethics and the violence), and one of the best. If you're new to the samurai genre, it may be a slight bit much for you; it's spare and stark and intellectual for most of its length and then explodes into a gut-clutching display of Toshiro Mifune's swordsmanship."

But 35 years later, having gained experience and gained the reputation of a guru of American film criticism, in the second review of Kobayashi's film, he rated it already with the maximum four stars, including it in his list of "Great Movies". In this review, Ebert, firstly, noted that, despite the various interpretations of the title of the picture, Kobayashi himself defined the main theme of the film in one word: "Rebellion". And this is no coincidence, since Masaki Kobayashi himself was a rebel and at the same time a pacifist. His rebelliousness was manifested in the fact that during the Second World War, when he was drafted into the army and sent to Manchuria, he refused to participate in hostilities, declaring that "war is the culmination of evil." (It is difficult to say what Kobayashi's active opposition to the army would have led to, especially during the war, but after he was transferred to the Ryukyu Islands, he was very successfully captured by the Americans and spent a year in a prisoner of war camp in Okinawa.) Secondly, Ebert came to the conclusion that ""Samurai Rebellion" can be seen as a statement against the conformity that remained central in Japanese life long after this period. It is the story of three people who learn to become individuals."

In the Soviet Union, Masaki Kobayashi's film "Samurai Rebellion" was not shown.

Despite the passage of more than half a century since the release of the picture on the screens, the modern moviegoer appreciates it very highly. 78% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated the film from 8 to 10. And 23% of users rated the film with the highest score - "ten".

With this in mind, Masaki Kobayashi's "Samurai Rebellion" was rated 8,336 by FilmGourmand, making it 400th in the Golden Thousand.