Cruel Tale of Bushido won the Golden Bear Award at the 1963 Berlin Film Festival for its uncompromising deconstruction of the concept of bushido.

Best known for dramas such as Until We Meet Again and An Inlet of Muddy Water, the Japanese filmmaker Tadashi Imai was also the director of Revenge, a highly accomplished and brutal jidaigeki picture. These two sensibilities come together in the film that might just stand as Imai's masterpiece: Cruel Tale of Bushido.

Kinnosuke Nakamura (Miyamoto Musashi) stars in multiple roles, playing seven generations of men belonging to the same family. In the modern day, salary man Iikura is devastated by his wife's attempted suicide. To distract himself, he begins working through his recently discovered family records. As he traces his personal history across 350 years, he discovers tale after tale of men who have suffered, debased themselves and made untold sacrifices in the name of bushido, or the moral code of the samurai.

Featuring Eijiro Tono (Seven Samurai) and Masayuki Mori (Rashomon) in supporting roles and boasting a foreboding score by the celebrated composer Toshiro Mayuzumi, Cruel Tale of Bushido won the Golden Bear Award at the 1963 Berlin Film Festival for its uncompromising deconstruction of the all-too-often romanticized concept of bushido. The Masters of Cinema series is honored to present the film on Blu-ray for the first time in the US.

Bonus Materials

• Limited edition O-card slipcase featuring new artwork by Tony Stella
• Limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Japanese cinema expert Hayley Scanlon
• 1080p HD presentation from a 4K restoration by Toei
• Original Japanese mono audio
• Optional DTS-HD MA 5,1 audio
• Optional English subtitles, newly revised for this release
• Telling a Cruel Tale – new interview with film critic Tony Rayns
• Years of Honour – new video essay on Cruel Tale of Bushido and Japanese history by Jonathan Clements, author of A Brief History of Japan
• Trailer

Cast & Crew

Actors:

• Kinnosuke Nakamura
• Eijiro Tono
• Kyôko Kishida
• Masayuki Mori
• Takeshi Katô
• Yoshiko Mita
• Ineko Arima
• Michiko Araki

Director: Tadashi Imai