Samurai and Prisoner

Japan, 16th century. Samurai Murashige Araki rebels against the tyrannical Oda and barricades himself in a mountain fortress. Rather than execute the enemy envoy Kanbei Kuroda, he imprisons him - and this man becomes an unexpected ally when mysterious deaths begin to plague the castle and fear and suspicion grow among its defenders.

This historical drama by director Kiyoshi Kurosawa is based on the acclaimed novel by Honobu Yonezawa and takes place in 1578, during the period of warring states. The unraveling mystery intertwines with a clash of wills between two men with different notions of honor, power, and freedom.

Kurosawa made his first historical film as a tribute to classic Japanese samurai dramas. "I didn't want to invent a new style. I wanted to make the film as classical as possible, because today's audiences have almost forgotten the great Japanese historical films from the 1940s and 1950s," the director says. The austere visual style and emphasis on character psychology reflect this - as does the restrained treatment of violence: "Real violence you can find anywhere on the internet today. But that isn't cinema. In film, violence must be both real and restrained."