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Information
- A.k.a.
- The Wanderers
- Year
- 1973
- Runtime
- 96 min.
- Director
- Kon Ichikawa
- Genre
- Drama
- Rating *
- 6.9
- Votes *
- 75
- Checks
- 73
- Favs
- 3
- Dislikes
- 0
- Favs/checks
- 4.1% (1:24)
- Favs/dislikes
- 3:0
Top comments
-
monty
There were in effect two kinds of kyokaku or "town knights" as the medieval yakuza likened themselves. Both types were organized into gangs or protection-societies. The hatamoto-yakko were answerable to a gambling-boss; the machi-yakko were answerable to the labor boss.
Through this yakuza environment were a class of wanderers or toseinin who typically wore blue capes & flat-topped sedgehats & carried a single longsword. Some were ex-farmers whose farms had failed so had gone on the road as itinerant laborers. Others were free spirits, young men who adapted the kyokoku code of yakuza behavior & could be assured free lodging just about in any town where there was a yakuza organization.
One of the conventional set-pieces of medieval yakuza films is a toseinin's arrival at a village boss's headquarters offering some inexpensive gift, such as a towel, as humble payment for a night's lodging. If the representative of the household accepts the gift, then no obligation for a night's lodging will be incurred. So the wanderer will push the towel toward the greeter & say, "Please take my humble gift," & the greeter pushes it back at the wanderer & with exaggerated graciousness says, "I couldn't think of taking any payment."
If unfamiliar with the fundamentals of yakuza fiction, this sort of sequence may seem pointless & merely delays the action. But once one understands the underlying meaning of this kind of recurring sequence, it becomes quite tense, as it is about acquiring or not acquiring obligation, & there's always the possibility that some decent fellow is going to be hoodwinked into becoming the fall-guy for a rotten gangster boss's dubious agenda.
7 years ago -
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This movie ranks #51 in Kinema Junpo's Top 200 Japanese Films
Kinema Junpo's Top 200 J…
51