Utaemon Ichikawa
Of the great pre-war chanbara stars, the least well-known outside of Japan is Utaemon Ichikawa because almost all his movies were star vehicles that were dependably entertaining but never wandered into unusual territories that might draw the attention of Euro/American distributors. He was a giant in his field, rather like Randolph Scott in the Western but with a much greater amount of humor in his films. Still, the chanbara was a genre that was not taken seriously outside Japan until Yojimbo’s world-wide impact. Like Chiezo Kataoka, he had to spend the Occupation years in modern-dress films, but once the American restrictions were removed he was able to pick up his sword and get back to work in his old field. Unlike Kataoka, he was known to actually crack a smile and even laugh. He was also one of the most successful franchisers in Japanese cinema, making thirty or more movies from the silent era into the sixties playing the same character, the “Bored Hatamoto,” a record matched only by Tora-san and by Zatoichi if you count the TV shows as well. Hence, Drunken Sword, sometime available on YouTube, is a rare chance to see him at work, though not part of the Bored Hatamoto series and made when he was nearly sixty and past his physical prime.
The title as translated makes little sense, since Ichikawa is not a drunk, though he does like his sake and even gets into a drinking match with his apprentice. Rather, he is a sword master who runs a dojo and still has time to conduct a medical practice on the side. As a doctor, he charges a flat fee of 10 mon (think 10 cents) for any treatment and thus draws a large number of the poor. He makes lots of enemies among the other doctors, because he offers common-sense treatments for ailments rather than expensive drugs and even on occasion tells patients there is nothing wrong with them.
Treating the sick child who has overeaten
The other doctors even try to get the Magistrate to run him out of town as a quack. He also falls into the bad graces of the yakuza because he treats and shelters injured workmen or people they have attacked. His apprentice is very frustrated because he doesn’t believe he’s learning real medicine, but his training pays off when he delivers his first baby and finally receives Ichikawa’s praise.
But we’re a long way from Red Beard. There are lots of comic bits, taken at breakneck speed and with lots of shouting by the comic characters and not particularly funny at this distance. The pregnant woman apparently has a basketball under her kimono,*
which give some idea of the level of realism and of humor in the whole affair. Still, Ichikawa gets several sword fights, including a test match with the Yakuza’s resident ronin, before the final big fight in the confined quarters of a merchant’s ship.
All in all, it delivers exactly what Ichikawa’s audience might expect. It’s not going down in any history books, but it’s a good example of the general idea of a pleasant afternoon at the movies and a chance to see one of the most genial and persistently popular chanbara stars of Japanese history.
* Though Japanese movies have been, by Code era American standards, remarkably open about sexual relations (though not the act itself), pregnancy, and abortion, I think this is the earliest visible pregnancy I can recall. Certainly, there is no attempt to provide padding for the woman in Killer Whale, made the same year.
