Film

When peacetime in 17th-century Japan leaves the samurai class unemployed and disgraced, one ronin requests permission to kill himself in the Iyi forecourt, arousing suspicions about his possible ulterior motives. Shifting between past and present, Kobayashi's stinging account of feudal corruption (which won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes) exposes the cruelty of ancient codes and rituals. Lurking beneath its genre thrills is a searing political critique that links the injustices of postwar Japan with the nation's brutal past.