Word: samurai
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Died. Jiro Minami, 81, onetime hard-drinking, samurai-style Japanese army general (at 60 he was a good fencer, an expert with the broadsword), war minister in 1931, when the Japanese army marched into Manchuria, ambassador and commander-in-chief in Manchukuo 1934-36, tyrannical governor general of Korea 1936-42; of uremic poisoning; in Kamakura, Japan. In 1945, Minami was ordered arrested by General MacArthur with ten other class A war criminals; he was paroled last year from Tokyo's Sugamo Prison because of ill health...
...Samurai (Homel; Fine Arts Films] rivets the eye with its swift alternations of animal ferocity and morning calm. Like the prizewinning Gate of Hell (TIME, Dec. 13), this new Japanese film begins with a disordered 17th century battle piece: a flood of lance-waving horsemen surge across a meadow; agile warriors skip and pirouette in a whirling of two-handed blades; the defeated topple, with blood bursting between their clenched teeth. The struggle ends in far-off shouting as mists steal down from the mountains to draw a pale blanket over the slain...
...Rentaro Mikuni, longs to go back home to the girl he left behind, but he is weak-willed, and the women use him for their own purpose. The other, Toshiro Mifune, is a bullnecked, snarling ruffian who dreams of avenging the lost battle by becoming a great samurai. He soon has a chance when a rabble of bandits raid the farm. Toshiro kills the bandit chief and routs his men, then becomes a beast of the hills. He sweeps back into his native village, scattering the militia like a cat in a hen roost...
...Samurai now propounds its moral: that a headstrong man is of no use to his nation unless he is tamed by virtue. While regiments of armed men scour the hills for Toshiro, a deceptively jolly priest (Kuroemon Onoe) and a frightened girl (Kaoru Yachigusa) ensnare him with kindness. Brought home, Toshiro is trussed up like a maniac and suspended from a tall tree. Each morning and evening the priest inquires if his spirit is broken, and Toshiro answers with howling curses. The girl frees the prisoner, but the wily priest traps Toshiro again, this time locks him in a tower...
Yokoyama began his volcanic life in turbulence. He was born in a bamboo grove, where his mother had crept to escape the swinging swordsmen of feuding samurai factions at the dawn of the Meiji Era. Sent to a Tokyo art school, Yokoyama soon proved his talents for 1) outstanding brushwork and 2) consuming sake. Advised by a professor to drink either one sho (3.8 pints) of sake a day or nothing, Yokoyama took to the bottle in earnest. Today he begins his day by downing a prebreakfast glass full of his favorite sake brand, "Inebriate Soul", during the rest...