This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Viewed on DVD. Score = seven (7) stars; cinematography = barely five (5) stars; restoration = four (4) stars; script = four (4) stars. Director Akira Kurosawa (who also wrote the movie script, but not the play) presents a less-than-successful mash up of stage play and motion picture. This slice-of-life or existential play/movie has no beginning (unless you count the extensive lead-in expository text and singing which is essentially a filmed version of a play's program notes) or end with not much happening in between. The title (mentioned in the expository text) may be semi historical, but does not make much/any sense for the name of the play/movie. Fleeting mature acting is all but buried (or blown up) by the juvenile antics of comedian Motohiko Itou who Kurosawa allows to run roughshod over the play/movie. (This character seems to be a fugitive from a Saturday-morning TV show for three-year old's.) Itou's performance is not only a self caricature, but gives a vast new meaning to the word "ludicrous." (His persistent performance soon becomes extremely painful to watch!) The pace of the play/movie is slow and the result is boring. Kurosawa's focus is on talking heads with almost zero physical action. A major reediting seems to be in order to both shorten the play/movie and remove 90 percent of Itou's "bolt-on" embarrassing performance. Phony studio "exterior" sets look OK for a play, but are a distraction for a movie with set decoration dominated by poorly painted canvas. Cinematography (narrow screen, black and white) is OK. Score and subtitles are fine. Restoration has a way to go (but may not be worth further investment for such an inferior film). Wear marks, dirt artifacts, and frame shrinkage occur throughout the film. Not recommended even for the most fanatical of Kurosawa fans! WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.

The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, adapted from the kabuki play Kanjinchō, tells the tale of Minamoto no Yoshitsune, a feudal lord who must flee his lands with his most loyal retainers disguised as a party of itinerant monks. It is a simple film, with a straightforward plot, only a handful of characters, and a feel more akin to a filmed stage play than major studio production. Its running time, including credits, comes in at just under an hour.Yet it has an endearing minimalist charm to it that. The story may be simple, but it is nonetheless compelling, with more than hint of danger and important lessons about friendship and honor. It is well acted, especially the part in which one of the retinue must bluff his way past the guards by reciting a history of their order from memory. The comic relief, provided by the group's porter, is also quite good, and the villain is convincingly dislikable.I admit that this is not a particularly exciting film, nor a visually impressive one. The handful of sets are sparse, and only occasionally is there anything in the way of action. I also confess that western viewers unfamiliar with the art of kabuki (such as myself) will likely miss a great deal of subtext. It is by no means the kind of masterpiece that the director, Kurosawa, would later go on to film, but it is engaging in its own way. The average American audience may not find much here, but those familiar with Japanese culture and arts should find much to enjoy.

Perhaps it was too ambitious of me to sample one of Akira Kurosawa's earliest pictures, considering my extremely limited experience with his work {this would make only my fourth viewing from the director}. Often, delving into a well-known filmmaker's more obscure works is a job primarily for the aficionados and the completists, as they possess the knowledge to properly appreciate each film's importance in the development of the director's skills as an artist. Then again, perhaps being in the dark about Kurosawa's favourite themes and techniques gives me an opportunity to judge the film purely on its own individual merits, as though I'd been watching back in 1945. If this is the case, then I'm afraid that my assessment isn't entirely positive. 'Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (1945)' shows plenty of promise on occasion, but that it was filmed on a shoestring budget is instantly recognisable, and every technique in Kurosawa's film-making book seems so utterly workmanlike and uninspired that you can see where this film is going from the outset.The film was adapted from an 1840 play, "Kanjinchō," by Gohei Namiki, which was itself based on the Noh play "Ataka," from an unknown playwright. Indeed, the film itself feels exactly like a play, unfolding almost entirely in four separate locations, decorated like simple stage sets, with actors delivering their lines as Kurosawa's camera idly sits around and watches. As opposed to films like Sidney Lumet's '12 Angry Men (1957),' which undoubtedly derived strength from their likeness to theatre, 'Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail' simply appears static, such that the narrative feels hardly to be moving along at all. This makes the brief 60 minute running-time seem much longer, and yet, paradoxically, the ill-developed story also feels truncated and incomplete. But there are strengths, of course: Kurosawa is able to develop some solid suspense in the battle-of-wills between Benkei (Denjirô Ôkôchi) and Togashi (Susumu Fujita), commander of the border guards. Takeo Ito also photographs some nice scenery, particularly the final shot of the Sun over the Japanese wilderness.At least as far as the film's performances are concerned, Kurosawa's unevenness somehow works as a positive. Whereas every other character is relatively somber, excepting the occasional eruption of jolly laughter, the rubber-faced Porter (Kenichi Enomoto) positively exudes an extraordinary nervous energy. His hilariously-annoying cackle, exaggerated facial expressions and wide-eyed double-takes are at odds with everything else in the tone of Kurosawa's film, and yet his presence is indispensable. Denjirô Ôkôchi displays plenty of charisma as the apparent leader of the "monks," and, thankfully, the English subtitles meant that I didn't have to decipher his consistently-mumbled lines. At first, I found Kurosawa's choice of music – a selection of surprisingly merry and adventurous ballads – to be intrusive and out-of-place, but then I recognised their derivation from Western cinema, particularly the films of John Ford {whom Kurosawa ardently admired}, and I was better able to appreciate the tone that was being attempted. 'Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail' is certainly the weakest of the director's films I've seen to date, but might nonetheless warrant a rewatch somewhere down the track, when I'll know better.

The movie is seemingly based on an event from Japan's past, but it is really Kurosawa's allegory on Japan's condition at the end of World War Two. A prince, estranged from his brother, and six of his loyal retainers wander through the forest. They all look disheveled and hard up. They must cross a barrier manned by officials who are not exactly friendly to them, before they can move on to improving their life. The prince is disguised as a lowly porter and we rarely see his face. his retainers are warriors but are now forced to don monk's robes and indeed in passing through the barrier manned by the unfriendly forces (read American's) the lead monk must read a treatise in which peace is extolled as the reason for their existence. basically, the monks are Japanese elite, the porter is the Japanese public, the prince is the emperor, the barrier officials are the Americans, whose leader is wise and although he knows the truth allows the monks to live. They are many truths within truths here. Indeed, in the end the adviser to the emperor says, "we must move on (read from the feudal system) if we are to survive". a very fine movie, short yet poignant. one can easily see even in this early feature of his that Kurosawa is a master at symbolic imagery. By the way this movie was made in 1945, but not released in Japan until 1952. After watching it, I can see why it was delayed. It would have been extremely painful as a Japanese citizen to watch this in 1945, with their country in shambles around them. highly recommended.