Gosha Again

In our youth, Ms. Spenser and I watched a lot of samurai movies at the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline MA. They had a double-bill that changed 3 times a week, and we caught pretty much every film. We saw the classic Mifune films - Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Yojimbo - and the great Zatoichi films (Shintaro Katsu made about 35 of these). But one director blew us away every time: Hideo Gosha. He made visually captivating films about outlaw samurai living and dying on the edge of the sword.

So when I felt like a great samurai flick, I queued up Goyokin. An enigmatic story about a village that had been wiped out without a survivor, leaving only clouds of black crows. A drunk ex-samurai (the bug-eyed, intense Tetsuya Nakadai) who makes his living doing quickdraw demonstrations. A samurai searching for him. A corrupt official of the government. A melee in front of a burning building. And a lot of beautiful and not-very-easy-to-understand situations and confrontations.

It was just what we were in the mood for. Unfortunately, as soon as it started, we realized that we had seen it before. We couldn't remember when, but we remembered everything about it. As we watched, we fell into a trance, and then fell asleep, and dreamed of black birds, swordfights and burning buildings.