Tasked with restaging a moldy potboiler filmed nearly thirty-years ago with the same lead actor (and remade by others just four years back), Kon Ichikawa, with oversized daring & visual flair as cudgel, turned out this wildly entertaining masterpiece. In one of his last screen appearances, Kazuo Hasegawa repeats in the classic double-role as a Noh Theater actor specializing in female roles (he’s in drag on stage and off) and as the manly/macho ‘People’s Bandit,’ always following the revenge from the best vantage point.* Hasegawa and his acting company are on tour when he spies two of the three nobles who ruined his family’s business, and led his parents to suicide, sitting in the audience. Now, after years of waiting, he can begin his grand plan by seducing the lovely daughter of one of the nobles. (Yes, still in drag, a big turn-on for her.) For Western audiences, occasional moments of confusion pop up, but not enough to derail the pleasures of Ichikawa’s stylish & stylized soundstage treatments and richly colored designs. With his usual visual restraint cast aside for sophisticated dazzle, starting with spectacular CinemaScope-friendly Noh Theater presentations along with highly theatrical ‘spot’ lighting effects used in the more realistic sets, one transition after another delivers pure jolts of visual delight. Get the biggest screen you can find! And give yourself a leg up on character & plot by going back after the first half-hour or so to start again from the beginning. This way, you won‘t need a scorecard to keep things straight.
DOUBLE-BILL/ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *In the original 1936 film (not seen here/apparently unavailable on Region 1 DVDs), Hasegawa also plays his own mother.
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