Love and Honour

I have followed the Takuya Kimura's drama series, Engine 引擎, on Channel U for some time now, and enjoy every minute partly because of the script revolving around the little kids. The admiration for his drama series started from Pride, where I realised that he is actually quite an actor - one of those who acts from the heart, as Leon Lai did in Three. So it was no surprise that I caught his movie, Love and Honour, exclusively at GV. Another draw was of course, director Yoji Yamada, the brain behind Twilight Samurai (starring Hiroyuki Sanada), a quiet, sensitive look at a lost era. KL had also watched the second of Yoji Yamada's samurai trilogy, Hidden Blade. Too bad I missed its short spell on the big screen.

Now, firstly, you don't expect Love and Honour to be another Twilight Samurai. For one, you have Takuya Kimura, who honestly would be out of his depth in the latter. Apparently, he rejected the Japan Academy Award (JAA) nomination for this role. Well, I like a man who knows his limits. Given his monotonous facial expression, the all-too-often grimaces, the samurai he portrays reminded me constantly of the boy-man in Engine. Yet, his performance lends a most unlikely light-hearted, jovial, contemporary aura. Perhaps, that is also what the director sees in him.

The typical samurai in my mind, is stoic and lives by a stern code, yet Shinnojo, a lowly-ranked samurai, loathes about his mundane office as a food-taster for the lord, plays practical jokes on kids, treats his old, faithful servant as an amusement in a father-son manner and as a mockery on the glorious past of the enigma with it's caste system. He bears a dream of opening a martial art school for kids regardless of status.

The film opened with a subtly funny scene, where the official food-tasters sit in a row, all boredom embodied, till their superior comes in, and everybody immediately straightens up. In carrying out his duty, Shinnojo is poisoned, becomes blind and useless as a breadwinner. Persuaded by his relatives, the long-suffering wife Kayo (the demure Rei Dan, an unknown to me), approaches her childhood friend, Shimada, the Chief Duty Officer for help.

The family gets his annual remuneration of bags of rice, as a result of Shimada's intervention, or so they thought, until Shinnojo hears from his acquaintance, how the Lord decides graciously to compensate him for life. By then, things have already degenerated gravely, where Shinnojo has divorced Kayo in anger, on her confession of a sexual affair with Shimada, a desperate return of favour. So with love and honour, the blind swordsman turns on Shimada for his cruel, perverted deception of Kayo, challenging him to a duel. Needless to say, against the odd, the blind wins, leaving Shimada one-armed, committing seppuku.

The film ends in a sweet, heartwarming manner, which lingers even now. As Shinnojo has endured months of badly cooked meals from his old servant, he finally relents to the hiring of another lady cook. Perhaps, Shinnojo is half-expecting the faithful servant to know what to do, perhaps deep in his heart, he feels that having Kayo back at his side is the last right thing to do. Anyhow, it felt damn right when Shinnojo, upon tasting his food, asked for the presence of the new cook...as my eyes turned as red as Shinnojo's. Well, almost...

I guess the theme, as in Twilight Samurai, goes beneath the surface. This one is about the importance of humanity, of family, beyond the caste system and status...