Americans often think of the chanbara films as Japanese versions of the American Western. This is not particularly true over the long history of Japanese movies, but there is no doubt the chanbara films most Americans know, those of the sixties and seventies, usually follow an all too familiar pattern. A lone drifter wanders into town, finds a corrupt community, and cleans it up, earning the love of one or more women, only to fade off into the distance. In the Japanese version, he walks into town rather than rides a horse, uses a sword rather than a pistol, and, given that the main island is north-south, he does not walk off into the sunset toward the west, but the overall pattern is so obvious that almost everyone has noticed.
There are a lot of reasons why this is a specious comparison, which perhaps will
Raizo Ichikawa focusing on revenge.
eventually result in a longer post. But then you come across a film like Homeless Drifter, which is, as far as I have seen thus far, the chanbara most like an American Western. Raizo Ichikawa is a drifter, apparently a yakuza though this is never quite spelled out, who is also on a mission to find the man who killed his father and stole a gold shipment. When he reaches this particular small town, various clues tell him that man is here. In the Western he would be the banker foreclosing on the farms, but here he is the loan-shark foreclosing on the people themselves, selling them to work off their debts in the gold mines of Sado Island, from which no one ever returns alive. As he pursues his quest, he gains the love of not only the sweet peasant/farm girl but also the mistress of the local gang boss. One dies, the other starts to say “I love you,” but he stops her to say he doesn’t want to know because he’s just gotta keep drifting along, so to speak. You can’t get more cowboy/gunfighter movie than that.¹
There is a plot twist that most Americans can see coming from a mile away, but which may have been quite a surprise to Japanese audiences of the day. Since the movie is rarely seen (though it is currently on YouTube), I’ll try to avoid any obvious spoiler for readers who may want to follow up.
The most interesting aspect of the movie, and what makes it for me the most nearly like an American film, is not the cowboy story line but rather Ichikawa’s relationship with his father. At one point in his reminiscences, Ichikawa says “I really miss fighting with my father.” I nearly fell out of my chair in surprise. Father-son relationships in Japanese films, particularly period Japanese films, approach the sacred. While there may be tensions felt, they are usually suppressed, at least on the son’s side. As we learn more, we find out that Ichikawa’s dad used to beat him severely, also something I have rarely seen (actually, as I write this I can’t think of any instances, though I’m sure some will occur to me later, or a commenter will eventually correct me). He actually left home to become a drifter after he beat up his father. Nevertheless, he still feels compelled to avenge his father’s death.
The director, Kenji Misumi, was one of Daiei’s most dependable chanbara film-makers, shooting a large number of the Satan’s Sword, Zatoichi, Sleepy Eyes of Death, Lone Wolf and Cub, and Hanzo the Razor series, as well as quite a few free-standing films in the genre. During the early 60s, when this was made, he and Ichikawa made so many movies together in such a brief span of time, I occasionally wonder if they even knew which movie they were working on when they met on the set. And it seems obvious from the ending that the studio hoped this would turn into another series.
Despite the track record of a studio hack, however, Misumi knew how to put together a
Strange ruins frame an otherwise standard face-off.
good movie. His assignments in the numerous studio series he worked on usually rank as the best episodes (think, perhaps, Henry Hathaway or John Sturges). Here he and/or his photographer seem to have gone to considerable thought about the composition of most shots, and there is a strong stylistic unity based on scenes shot through railings and posts dividing the screen to frame the actors, all finished off by a visually flamboyant duel among the rocks and crashing waves of the seaside.
The Drifter demands answers, in one of the many careful compositions in the wide-screen format.
You won’t feel like you wasted your two hours watching this.
- There is a series closely modeled on the American Western, the Wataridori movies of 1959-62. Akira Kobayashi wanders Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan, riding into town on a horse, wearing a cowboy hat and fringed leather jacket, and carrying a guitar; the plots often end in a quick-draw shootout. After he cleans up the local villainy, very often involving exploitation of the Ainu, Japan’s “indigenous people” who often dress like the American Indians in movies, he rides off alone, leaving behind the beautiful young woman usually played by Ruriko Asaoka . The craziness of the series is that, in all other aspects, it is set in the 1960s.
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