Product Details

• Actors: Toshirô Mifune, Yôko Tsukasa, Takeshi Katô, Tatsuyoshi Ehara, Etsuko Ichihara
• Directors: Masaki Kobayashi
• Writers: Shinobu Hashimoto, Yasuhiko Takiguchi
• Producers: Toshirô Mifune, Tomoyuki Tanaka
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Language: Japanese
• Subtitles: English
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Homevision
• VHS Release Date: June 13, 2000
• Run Time: 128 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0780018702
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #21,082 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #13 in	Video > Art House & International > Asian Cinema > Japan > Samurai Films
  #24 in	Video > Classics > International > Japan
  #30 in	Video > Art House & International > Asian Cinema > Japan > Drama

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
This samurai classic, set in 18th-century Japan, combines great acting and thrilling action with thoughtful writing and direction. The magnificent Toshiro Mifune (Seven Samurai, The Samurai Trilogy) stars as Isaburo, a renowned swordsman who is the essence of samurai loyalty until his overlord demands the return of a former mistress, Isaburo's beloved daughter-in-law. The injustice to his family forces Isaburo to take a heroic stand for individual freedom and moves him toward a revolt he can never win. Written by Shinobu Hashimoto (Rashomon) and directed by Masaki Kobayashi (Harakiri, Kwaidan), Samurai Rebellion is "a clear departure from the norm...a compelling legend stressing one man's opposition to tyranny in an age when such opposition was unthinkable" (The New York Times). The bloody climax rages with power and emotion.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Man, a Woman, a Sword, and Family Honor, July 17, 2002

By	James Paris "Tarnmoor" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

To be a samurai meant owing nearly absolute allegiance to the leader of one's clan, the daimyo. One often filmed story is about 47 loyal samurai committing harakiri en masse when their clan is disbanded. But what happens when the daimyo is unjust and plays with the lives of his loyal samurai?

In SAMURAI REBELLION, a young samurai is forced by his daimyo to marry a difficult mistress who had dared to manhandle him. Lady Ichi surprisingly turns out to be a jewel, and Yogoro, her new husband, grows to love her. When the daimyo changes his mind and has her kidnapped after several unsuccessful attempts to bully the family, Yogoro and his father Itaburo (Toshiro Mifune) singlehandedly take on the whole clan.

Before you know it, the blades are out of their sheathes, and bodies are falling all over the place. Particularly spectacular is a duel between Itaburo and his friend Tatewaki (played by the great Tatsuya Nakadai) in a windswept field of grass. Director Masaki Kobayashi (KWAIDAN, HARAKIRI) is at his best here; and numerous scenes are icily controlled and eerily beautiful as he guides his camera, breaking down sequences into abstract geometrical patterns.

I can't help remembering the song in the musical BANDWAGON which summarizes HAMLET as "The king and the prince meet / And everyone ends up mincemeat." As in HARAKIRI, there is a point to the mayhem here: The honor of a single family CAN outweigh the honor of the clan.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Right to Love versus Social Order, November 9, 2005

By	Gerard D. Launay (Berkeley, California) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Samurai Rebellion - Criterion Collection (DVD)

One of the 15 best movies ever made! (Witness the fact that all Amazon reviewers (22 of them) give it five stars!). The plot is
quite interesting. A woman, Lady Ichi, is forced by the regional Lord to marry into the family of a vassal (Samurai Isaburo played by the incomparable Toshiro Mifune) because she insulted the Lord in public. After two years, Isaburo's son and Lady Ichi fall in love; they have a daughter. All is well except it becomes convenient for the Lord to demand return of the woman and annul the marriage...thus Lady Ichi is twice betrayed. Samurai Isaburo is incensed. He and his son resist the claim of the Lord to take the woman back and literally fight to the death for the right of Lady Ichi and his son to love each other and legitimize the daughter. Throughout, the movie is quite sympathetic to women issues and Lady Ichi is portrayed magnificently.

What makes the movie so outstanding is the way in which sound, music, and photography are combined to reinforce the themes of the film. Literally, every frame of the movie has some symbolic significance: the positions of the parties, the carefully phrased speech of the protoganists and agonists, the sound of wind. Every frame is an art piece - like a still life. (This is the style of another of the director's masterpieces of historical Japan - HARAKIRI). If THRONE OF BLOOD is the Japanese version of Macbeth, SAMURAI REBLLION is the Japanese version of the Iliad. I loved it.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars gripping drama, July 13, 2006

By	Bacchus "indy_himself" (4066 Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Samurai Rebellion - Criterion Collection (DVD)

I won't repeat details of the plot here, suffice to say that I found it completely gripping. I was very tired when I started to watch this, looking for an excuse to go to bed: None came, I was glued to the screen for the two hours and couldn't look away. A great story of a family wronged by their tyrannical lord, and the unwinnable fight they embark on.
Kobayashi's cinematography is brilliant, with virtually frame by frame composition of the picture. Soon you come to appreciate the black and white format as an asset used to underline the theme of geometry throughout the picture, with a high quality transfer to DVD.
Kobayashi also directed Harakiri, which I was equally impressed with. Both movies are quintessential Japanese cinema and an excellent investment.