Rent Cruel Tale of Bushido (1963)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
Best known for dramas such as 'Until We Meet Again' and 'An Inlet of Muddy Water', the Japanese filmmaker Tadashi Imai was also the director of 'Revenge', a highly accomplished and brutal jidaigeki picture. These two sensibilities come together in the film that night just stand as Imai's masterpiece: 'Cruel Tale of Bushido'. Kinnosuke Nakamura (Miyamoto Musashi) stars in multiple roles, playing seven generations of men belonging to the same family, n the modern day, salaryman Susumu likura is devastated by his wife's attempted suicide. In his grief, Susumu recalls the listory of his family over the previous 350 years: tale after tale of men who have suffered, debased themselves and made untold sacrifices in the name of 'bushido', or the moral code of the samurai. Faturing EijiroTono (Seven Samurai) and Masayuki Mori (Rashomon) in supporting roles and boasting a foreboding score by the celebrated composer Toshiro Mayuzumi, 'Cruel Tale of Bushido' won the Golden Bear Award at the 1963 Berlin Film Festival for its uncompromising deconstruction of the all-too-often romanticised concept of bushido. - Actors:
- Kinnosuke Nakamura, Eijirô Tôno, Kyôko Kishida, Masayuki Mori, Shinjirô Ehara, Takeshi Katô, Yoshiko Mita, Ineko Arima, Isao Kimura, Kusuo Abe, Harue Akagi, Ushio Akashi, Yoshirô Aoki, Michiko Araki, Kôji Arima, Emiko Azuma, Akira Hanagami, Akira Hanaue, Kôshirô Harada, Hiroshi Hatano
- Directors:
- Tadashi Imai
- Producers:
- Nobusaburô Honda, Hiroshi Ohkawa, Kimiharu Tsujino
- Writers:
- Norio Nanjo, Naoyuki Suzuki, Yoshikata Yoda
- Aka:
- Bushido: The Cruel Code of the Samurai / Bushidô zankoku monogatari / Cruel Tales of Bushido / The Oath of Obedience / Bushido, Samurai Saga / Cruel Story of the Samurai's Way
- Studio:
- n
- Genres:
- Action & Adventure, Classics, Drama
- Collections:
- Top 10 Golden Bear Winners, Top Films
- Countries:
- Japan
- Awards:
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 23/03/2026
- Run Time:
- 122 minutes
- Languages:
- Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 3.0, Japanese LPCM Mono
- Subtitles:
- English
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 2.35:1
- Colour:
- B & W
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- New interview with film critic Tony Rayns
- Seven Kinds of Samurai: Tadashi Imai's Cruel Tale - new video essay on 'Cruel Tale of Bushido' and Japanese history by Jonathan Clements, author of 'A Brief History of Japan'
- Trailer
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Reviews (1) of Cruel Tale of Bushido
The More Things Change, the More They Grovel - Cruel Tale of Bushido review by griggs
Not many films set out to make you feel terrible about the entire arc of human civilisation, but Tadashi Imai’s 1963 Golden Bear winner gives it a proper go. Framed by a modern salaryman discovering his family’s ancestral journals, Bushido: The Cruel Code of the Samurai marches through centuries of Japanese history — feudal, imperial, wartime, corporate — finding the same rotten master-servant dynamic in every era.
Kinnosuke Nakamura plays every downtrodden servant across the generations, transforming so completely it took me a while to realise it was one actor throughout. Some sections play closer to horror than period drama, and the parade of loathsome lords never lets up.
It belongs to a wave of Japanese films that attacked romanticised samurai mythology — and Imai ticks off imperialism, feudalism, fascism, and sadism before landing you squarely in a corporate boardroom. Point made.