Critic Reviews

In a sense, this is Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Throne of Blood,” one of the other Kurosawa’s unequivocal masterpieces, and it earns that comparison in every way.

“Samurai” is classical, if pared-back, in approach — at once a satisfyingly linked series of rousing whodunnits, a tricksy game of mental cat-and-mouse and a trenchant, often rather moving, exploration of the nature of true leadership, in all its solitude and sacrifice.

Intricate, enthralling, and as psychologically rich as his best work, it’s another feather in the illustrious artist’s cap.

Kurosawa’s well-timed camera moves cut like daggers. What emerges is a samurai picture that feels simultaneously classical and modern, austere and capacious, familiar and surprising.

Mr. Kurosawa, among our most contemporary-minded auteurs, has never been one to venture so far into the past, but here he brings it to vivid and complicated life.

There’s an openness to Muragishe (symbolized by his hobby as a diligent tea master and tea urn collector) that Kurosawa admires, something fairly rare in his dark, disorientating filmography. It’s this admiration—not to mention the film’s patience and detail—that makes The Samurai And The Prisoner a delightful detour for the genre master.

While not his finest film of his career (or even this year, that would be Chime), Kurosawa continues to prove himself as a vital contemporary master of the craft that explores the essential fabric of his past and present in order to understand the future that is coming.

In each mesmerizing move of the camera or precisely-framed shot, he draws us in closer and closer until we can practically feel the grass under our feet while he simultaneously keeps his sharp eye on the bigger picture.

It’s a handsomely mounted piece that leans more towards psychological warfare than the sword-based bloodshed that fans of Kurosawa’s previous work might expect.

Although the film is a somber examination of violence, it can also be dryly funny in its depiction of what Murashige must endure.