Samurai Wolf I & II may not be the chambara (sword-fighting films) that most directly inspired a generation of artists. However, once the action gets underway in these two Hideo Gosha movies, it’s difficult not to think about the early albums of The Wu-Tang Clan, the sword wielding of Yoshimitsu from the Tekken franchise, and Quentin Tarantino.
Such is the rich nature of the genre. The influence of chambara movies is strong in Western pop culture, with world cinema heavy hitter Akira Kurosawa being a prominent name known by most audiences. However, a quick Google of Hideo Gosha feels somewhat barren despite the depth of his influence felt by fans of the genre; something that Eureka Entertainment appears eager to bring around an amount of awareness to, with the Blu-ray release of the Samurai Wolf films.
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Isao Natsuyagi plays Kiba Ôkaminosuke, a charismatic, wandering Ronin with a ravenous stomach and mischievous grin. Kiba finds himself falling into volatile conflicts while mostly minding his own business. Kiba is poor in wealth yet rich in swordplay skills and warm in heart. These attributes have him enter the affairs of a remote waystation in the first film. In the follow-up sequel, a band of shady miscreants and a secret gold mine are the focal points.
These are short, sharp, and punchy pieces of entertainment, uninterested in padding out their stories with shoe leather. While not holding as much scope as Kurosawa’s entries in swordplay, both entries of Samurai Wolf have more than enough plot, characterisation and action to engage a viewer. Samurai Wolf stands out not only because of the charismatic Natsuyagi as Kiba but also with how both films confidently have their lead character absent for substantial amounts of their scant runtimes. There’s a knowingness in that, when Kiba does show, a viewer will be happy to see him.
Why should they not be? From the first glimpse of Kiba wolfing down rice in the first film to the bittersweet final walk at the end of the sequel, Natsuyagi’s Kiba is a consistently appealing and watchable character right down to his mischievous grin. Gosha wraps both films up with a strong sense of form. The visual compositions are stylish, while the sword fights are impactful despite the feeling that Gosha’s two features might not be rolling in production budget cash. Despite the plotting of both movies being a little murky, they both remain engaging to their climaxes.
One interesting aspect of Gosha’s two films is how easily the impish Kiba slots into the rogues’ gallery of 60’s cinema. The rebellious streak of this wandering Ronin doesn’t feel too far from Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name. The infamous spaghetti westerns have a strong influence on these two movies, and this is noted more than once in the Blu-ray collection extras. Said defiance is seen in the director himself. An ex-radio man who moved to TV, Gosha’s move to film was mocked by his TV colleagues, while the Samurai genre moved away from the big screen to television. This didn’t seem to faze Gosha.
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In the Blu-ray extras, Gosha’s determination to succeed can be seen by his daughter Tomoe remarking on the sword fighting practice in their garden with the film’s cast. But in watching Gosha’s two movies, with their keen visual style, spaghetti western influence and disarming poignancy, it’s clear the filmmaker was just as confident in telling these stories as Kiba is in his swordplay.
Samurai Wolf I & II are out now on Blu-ray from Eureka Entertainment.
