For a film whose title has alternately been translated as Tokijiro: Lone Yakuza and Kutsukake Tokijiro: The Lonely Yakuza, it's somewhat of a surprise when Tokijiro opens on two wandering ronin trading quips as they cross a bridge. No loneliness to see here. Eponymous “hero” Tokijiro (Kinnosuke Nakamura), reserved but rarely outright stoic, and his bumbling sidekick Asakichi (Atsumi Kiyoshi) are mid-discussion, Asakichi bemoaning the gravitas Tokijiro's greeting holds versus his own, poking some metatextual fun at the cinematic tradition of the solemn (but badass) samurai entrance. Seconds later, they're spilling the blood of a trio of thieves.
It's barely been a month since Radiance dropped their last Tai Kato disc, and they're already back with another, their fourth of the year so far. An earlier entry in his oeuvre than the prior releases, Tokijiro is a more traditional work from Kato: an 18th Century ninkyo eiga (or, ‘chivalry film') concerned with concepts of duty and honour. Tokijiro is every bit the reluctant swordsman, forced to trade his skill with a blade for room and board amongst the yakuza clans, an aspirant pacifist who subsists off of the untimely deaths of his targets. In his resistance toward the repeated calls to action, we find the dramatic tension of the picture.
The titular loneliness manifests after Tokijiro flees one such mission, leaving Asakichi—who Tokijiro had only hours earlier suggested was more cut out for farming than bloodletting—to fulfil the obligation in his place. Predictably, things go awry. Asakichi's faux-bravado upon entering hostilities is a wonderful emulation of the samurai spirit he sees in Tokijiro, bristling with the strength of ten men—and yet when we cut away before the action begins, the implication is clear. As Tokijiro says, “A nice guy like you isn't suited to this way of life.” It's only in the rage of the injustice that befalls Asa that Tokijiro finds the wherewithal to fight.
That stubborn code of honour hounds Tokijiro for the rest of the film, further exacerbated by the insecurities he feels as a drifter in a society defined by class and place. During Tokijiro's next assassination, his dying victim Sanzo (Chiyonosuke Azuma) pleads with him to protect his wife and children on their long journey home, a debt of gratitude that ends up propagating another debt and another and another… That this is also the last flash of action we see until the film's climax further clarifies the focus of the film, far more a melodrama about one man's ability to be good in a society that sees no harm in trading human lives for a week's bed and breakfast.
Compared with the other Kato releases from Radiance, the filmmaking feels less avant-garde, less confrontational. Regardless, there are still a number of striking images, accentuated by Kato's love for low angles and crowded framing. A beam of piercing light bursts out of the wide-open eye of a serpent tattoo; snow falls in grid line patterns across an oily night sky; and geysers of blood explode out of countless sliced arteries, with all the pressure and enthusiasm of a fireman's hose. The fights are chaotic and busy, less focused on the moment-to-moment action than the flurry of it all, swords moving at great speed through throngs of people, all manner of detritus clogging the screen, blood spraying over aggressors and innocents alike. In moments like this, Kato's qualities as a filmmaker shine through.
What's most interesting about Tokijiro is perhaps best summarised in a simple question from Sanzo's wife Okinu (Junko Ikeuchi): “How could a good person like you have killed my husband?” That conflict between good and bad, between what society deems proper and what feels right at a gut instinct level, is where the film digs in its hooks. It's only a shame that the surrounding material is more pedestrian, sporadically stirring as a melodrama and infrequently rousing as an action flick. Still, this is another fine entry in the Kato canon—let's hope there's more to come soon from Radiance.
Tokijiro: Lone Yakuza is available now in the UK.
