PEOPLE / 1 WORKMitsuo YoshiharaAlso credited as 吉原光夫All roles ↗actor ↗Movies 2026The Samurai and the PrisonerKiyoshi KurosawaA gorgeous film, I loved most of this, but agree with others it started to drag a little in the end. What it does well is identifying that the core of a samurai movie is that the samurai way of life is a belief system, in much the way religion is. And I think the movie knocks it out of the park in that regard. The samurai can accept and often crave death, while the peasants fear it. Their code of honor and belief is stronger than any paltry religion. And that's great! I think the core problem with the ending is that it has some wonderful ambiguity, and a terrible literalness. End the film a few frames earlier and we've got an all time banger.Movies · 2026The Samurai and the PrisonerCredit sourceswww.themoviedb.org/movie/1620313
Movies 2026The Samurai and the PrisonerKiyoshi KurosawaA gorgeous film, I loved most of this, but agree with others it started to drag a little in the end. What it does well is identifying that the core of a samurai movie is that the samurai way of life is a belief system, in much the way religion is. And I think the movie knocks it out of the park in that regard. The samurai can accept and often crave death, while the peasants fear it. Their code of honor and belief is stronger than any paltry religion. And that's great! I think the core problem with the ending is that it has some wonderful ambiguity, and a terrible literalness. End the film a few frames earlier and we've got an all time banger.Movies · 2026The Samurai and the Prisoner