Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Long-Awaited Jidaigeki Debut: “The Samurai and the Prisoner”

The Samurai and the Prisoner is a 16th-century period thriller. Inside Arioka Castle, besieged Lord Araki Murashige (Masahiro Motoki) confronts a series of inexplicable murders that threaten his court. He turns to Kanbei (Masaki Suda), a brilliant strategist he has locked in the dungeon, to find the killer. Adapted from Honobu Yonezawa’s Naoki-Prize-winning novel *Kokurojo*, the film will open in U.S. theatres on July 31 after Janus Films secured rights following its Cannes world premiere in May.

Hollywood Reporter

Kiyoshi Kurosawa, whose recent work includes the thrillers *Cure*, *Pulse* and *Cloud*, has long wanted to direct a jidaigeki. *The Samurai and the Prisoner* fulfills that ambition, drawing on classic samurai films by Akira Kurosawa, Masaki Kobayashi and Kenji Mizoguchi. Produced by Shochiku in association with Tokyo Broadcasting System Television, Kurosawa co-wrote the screenplay and worked with cinematographer Yasuyuki Sasaki to achieve a richly shadowed aesthetic consistent with classic jidaigeki. The cast features Masahiro Motoki as Murashige, Masaki Suda as Kanbei, and supporting actors Yuriko Yoshitaka, Joe Odagiri, Munetaka Aoki, Ryota Miyadate and Tasuku Emoto.

Hollywood Reporter

The film merges Kurosawa’s suspense style with the visual language of classic samurai cinema, showing that modern Japanese studios can still mount productions that require elaborate sets, locations, wigs, makeup and costumes. In a pre-Cannes interview, Kurosawa said past financial limits had blocked a jidaigeki project, but this film finally provided the resources needed to honor earlier masters while offering a fresh narrative. Janus Films, which acquired U.S. rights, scheduled its July 31 release.

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• “I’ve always had this desire to make a jidaigeki film one day, but to do so nowadays takes a lot of money,” — Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Director

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• “I just never really had the opportunity given to me until now.” — Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Director

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• “I wanted to try a classic film in a similar style to the great older films that came before me.” — Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Director

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• “Inside a feudal Japanese castle ringed by a warlord’s army, a series of impossible killings begins to turn a besieged court against itself — and the cornered lord, unable to find the culprit, seeks counsel from the one man cunning enough to unmask the murderer: a brilliant strategist he has chained in his own dungeon.” — Film Synopsis (Hollywood Reporter)

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*The Samurai and the Prisoner* will open in U.S. cinemas on July 31. The trailer was released on Thursday.

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