Showa Zankyo-den: Chizome no Karajishi

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Audience Member How I would love to see this movie again and share it with my friends. If you look around the Web you can find reviews that render reserved respect for it but no one seems to have seen it the way my friends and I did back in 1968. The mood is intense, solemn, even harsh, but the film is shot through with such oddities that I had to conclude, and still contend, that it is a monumental tour de force of understated surrealism. Do I remember incorrectly the mother of a group of combatants saying tearily, "This is the first time all my sons have come home alive"? Is it not odd that the warriors on both sides of the grim opening conflict (all of whom survive close combat with deadly weapons without a scratch) return to the same fort and have a laughing good time in the sauna all together? That the fiance of Signe is not the least bit concerned over her romance with outsider Hagbard but that his cousin is murderously jealous on his behalf? That the characters buy into the most pathetic disguise ever, of a woman, that virile, bearded Hagbard affects when he returns to his lady love? Doesn't one of the characters comment on the soundtrack? I was like, "Whaaaaaat?" from the opening, when the title "The Red Mantle" appeared on the screen instead of "Hagbard and Signe." Nobody in the theater said anything in the course of the film; one time one guy started to laugh at one of the incongruities, loudly, but almost instantly lapsed into the confused silence being observed by the rest of us. Taking it as surrealism was the only way I could make sense of it. How I long to see this movie again! Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/22/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Showa Zankyo-den: Chizome no Karajishi

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