Too many fans seem to be blown away

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, adapted from the kabuki play Kanjinchō, tells the tale of Minamoto no Yoshitsune, a feudal lord who must flee his lands with his most loyal retainers disguised as a party of itinerant monks. It is a simple film, with a straightforward plot, only a handful of characters, and a feel more akin to a filmed stage play than major studio production. Its running time, including credits, comes in at just under an hour.Yet it has an endearing minimalist charm to it that. The story may be simple, but it is nonetheless compelling, with more than hint of danger and important lessons about friendship and honor. It is well acted, especially the part in which one of the retinue must bluff his way past the guards by reciting a history of their order from memory. The comic relief, provided by the group's porter, is also quite good, and the villain is convincingly dislikable.I admit that this is not a particularly exciting film, nor a visually impressive one. The handful of sets are sparse, and only occasionally is there anything in the way of action. I also confess that western viewers unfamiliar with the art of kabuki (such as myself) will likely miss a great deal of subtext. It is by no means the kind of masterpiece that the director, Kurosawa, would later go on to film, but it is engaging in its own way. The average American audience may not find much here, but those familiar with Japanese culture and arts should find much to enjoy.

The film is not only based on an incident that happened in the 12th century, but also on the Noh play Ataka, and on the Kabuki play Kanjincho. Initially banned, the film was first released in 1952 and is the fourth film made by Akira Kurosawa. The Men Who Tread On The Tiger's Tail focuses on the exemplification of true feudal values that ruled Japan starting in the Heian period. In order to understand the movie perfectly, one has to know what happened before the events depicted in the picture. Here's a brief presentation of the story: after winning a bloody Naval battle with the rival Heike clan, the triumphant lord Yoshitsune Minamoto returns to Kyoto in order to take command. However, his jealous and envious brother Shogun Yoritomo orders his men to arrest Yoshitsune and all his comrades. Due to a lucky circumstance, Yoshitsune and six of his loyal samurai retainers are able to escape. In order to be truly safe they need to travel through the country and find shelter in the home of an only friend, Idehira Fukiwara.The movie starts when a group of monks traverses through a huge forest. Being accompanied by a silly yet truly helpful porter (Kenichi Enomoto), the group rests and decides to figure out a perfect plan. It's the first time the audience gets acquainted with all the characters, in order to realize that the monks are actually the lord (Hanshirô Iwai) and his samurai companions in disguise. They plan to march to the gate where the keepers await, and trick them into believing that they're actually a group of friendly monks gathering money to build a large temple in Kyoto. Unfortunately, the gatekeepers are already aware that a group of seven men is traveling through the country in such a disguise. With the help of the porter the men finally arrive and face the enemy, in what seems to be a tranquil, yet strangely intense, battle of nerves. Benkei (Denjirō Ōkōchi), a warrior monk, and Yoshitsune's most loyal friend, takes the stand and tries to persuade the watchful sentries of their faked mission. After a few moments of danger, just when the whole situation seems to be in shambles, Benkei once again shows his unmistakable intelligence and self-control. He proves that his skills and experience are masterful, leading to a successful ending to this dramatic story.The Men Who Tread On The Tiger's Tail is not Kurosawa's best, bust still a truly remarkable, detailed, and culturally conscious period drama, where the many ponderous Japanese virtues meet with an ostensibly stagnant atmosphere, all covered up in a package of truly minimalistic aspirations. Though short and not that interesting as many hope it would be, the film gives a fantastic glimpse at the rules that governed Japan in the 12th century, and presents a story, where wisdom and decisiveness are more valuable than bravery and prowess.

So here's a little personal background: I played Benkei in a somewhat modernized version of Kanjinchou, the kabuki play that this film is based on. Using a DVD recording of a 1943 performance, the cast spent a month of rehearsal copying in excruciating detail every motion and intonation of the kabuki actors (we spent the next month taking it apart and rebuilding it). So watching this film was, for me, a really interesting experience.First off, this film is very faithful to the kabuki. Its overall structure varies in some ways, but the story arc unfolds very similarly and many of the lines are taken directly from the original. I was really pleased that so much was kept in. While there have been many successful adaptations of kabuki to film in the past (Chushingura, Yotsuya Kaidan etc.), Kanjinchou doesn't really lend itself to this. The story is laughably brief, there's almost no action, and the play as a whole is really designed as a chance for the actor playing Benkei to strut his stuff.Other kabuki adaptations generally take just the story, but in this case Kurosawa has incorporated several aspects of kabuki performance in interesting ways. Using the 'nagauta' background singing to tell parts of the story is one, another the drum beats that come up occasionally. It might have been nice if these elements were applied more rigorously, but they're appreciated where they are put in.As others have noted, there's no real fighting or most of the things that people expect from samurai films. The interest stems from the tension in the relations between the three main characters: Benkei, the tower of strength and sworn to protect the noble and effete Yoshitsune (yes, there's some romance implied) squaring off against Togashi, learned and embodying samurai virtue. Kurosawa sparingly uses cinematographic techniques to heighten this drama in some scenes.Where Kurosawa makes changes is primarily increasing the role of ancillary characters in the film. I felt like this was a little unfortunate as it lessens the gravity of the relationship between Togashi and Benkei, whose clash of wits is at the heart of the play. The addition of the porter character is well considered where he seems to play the audience. However in other scenes he takes over Benkei's more seemingly silly acts (like the dance), which I think detracted from the dimensionality of that character: compared to the kabuki, the film's Benkei is almost depressingly unemotional.Overall the film probably will be disappointing to those wishing to see another 'Seven Samurai' or 'Yojimbo.' This is a very different sort of film, and I think probably takes some background reading to really appreciate. As a final note, I think it's misleading to try to read the film as WWII allegory. While the timing of its creation begs this sort of inquiry, this is a fairly straight adaptation of the original. That it was banned by the GHQ shouldn't be surprising: nearly everything set in the feudal period was seen to embody some sort of imperialistic values and was suppressed.

The story of Benkei (the faithful retainer) and his lord Yohitsune is an old one, familiar to Japanese audiences from both the Kabuki and Noh theaters. The musical score reflects these sources. The most stylized scenes (inspired by the very refined Noh theater) are accompanied by the high-pitched whistlings and drum taps of Noh. The more athletic scenes have Kabuki inspired music, and the scenes where Kurosawa departs from Japanese tradition have Western music. What Kurosawa adds to the story is a lowlife character (a porter) played by Japan's most famous comedian. The porter serves as audience and a kind of Greek chorus, reacting to and commenting on the action. As a result, we see the story through the eyes of a common man.Kurosawa used the same device (with variations) in many other films: the two peasants in The Hidden Fortress (which was a very similar story done with a much bigger budget); the Mifune character (a peasant pretending to be a samurai) in The Seven Samurai; the woodcutter in Rashomon; the inn keeper who gives shelter to the wandering samurai in Yojimbo; and (in one memorable scene) the captured soldier in Sanjuro. Not only does this device provide comic relief; it also puts the heroic deeds of the main characters in perspective, and connects them (with some irony) to the real world of everyday life.The climax of Kurosawa's 1945 film is the confrontation between Benkei and Togashi (the samurai in charge of the border station). The conflict is psychological rather than physical, with Benkei acting the part of a Buddhist monk, and Togashi testing him on Buddhist doctrine. There is little doubt that Togashi knows who Benkei and his companions really are, but Togashi lets them go because Benkei wins the contest. Togashi can find no flaw in Benkei's performance.