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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
* View IMDb information

Top comments

  1. monty's avatar

    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
  2. nbats's avatar
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In 1 official list

  1. This movie ranks #51 in Kinema Junpo's Top 200 Japanese Films
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    Kinema Junpo's Top 200 J…

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