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Released by: Animeigo
Released on: 9/6/2005
Director: Kihachi Okamoto
Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Shima Iwashita, Etsushi Takahashi, Minori Tereda, Nobuko Otowa, Takahiro Tamura
Year: 1969
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The Movie:
When Red Lion begins we learn that the Shogunate is on its last legs and that it will soon be losing its hold over Japan to the Emperor. A lowly peasant named Gonzo (Toshiro Mifune) is recruited by an officer named Sozo (Takahiro Tamura) to help the Imperial Restoration Force make this happen and get the Emperor back on the throne where he belongs. How they're going to make this happen is by moving from one small town to the next and causing trouble by telling everyone that it's in their best interest to get the Emperor back in power as he fully intends to cut taxes in half and wipe out everyone's debts.
Sozo's tactics seem to work pretty well, and soon he's got a few different villages siding with him, many of whom haven't offered up any resistance whatsoever resulting in a decent sized army of men now pledging their allegiance to the Emperor. When Sozo and Gonzo close in on the town where Gonzo spent his formative years as a child, he uses Sozo's wig, which is in essence a badge alerting everyone as to his position and his power, so that he can go in first and spread the word ahead of time.
When Gonzo arrives, he finds that his old stomping grounds have been used and abused by a group of corrupt local officials who have sold his old flame off as a whore in order to settle her father's debts. When the officials see Gonzo's red wig and recognize what they believe to be his official status, they panic a bit, not wanting him to put an end to a good thing. Soon enough, they've rallied up against him and he soon finds himself standing against a veritable army.
Minfune has always excelled with comedic material in much the same way he's proven himself more than capable of handling action and drama. Red Lion gives him a chance to combine all three and turn in a truly excellent performance, which carries the film quite nicely. While he's surrounded by competent supporting actors, Mifune commands attention throughout the film and his screen presence in this movie is pretty remarkable.
Kihachi Okamoto's direction is slick and competent, though with a running time of just under two hours a few scenes could have used a little bit of trimming here and there. Thankfully, those moments are few and far between and the movie is a pretty interesting experience. It starts off with plenty of comedy, even throwing in some basic slapstick here and there, but once they arrive in Gonzo's home town things take a decidedly darker turn and that's when the movie really picks up.
While both Mifune and Kihachi Okamoto would make better films in their careers (Seven Samurai and the Samurai Trilogy for Mifune and the phenomenal Sword Of Doom for Okamoto come to mind), Red Lion stands as an exemplary period drama with some nice comedic touches and a dark, action intensive ending. It looks great, it's very well acted, and it's entertaining and engrossing from beginning to end.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Animego has gone all out and completely restored the film from its original negative. The film is presented in it's original aspect ration of 2.35:1 and enhanced for 16 x 9 TVs and quite honestly, it looks great. The Film sports robust color and very sharp detail in both the foreground and the background of the image. There is some minor film grain in a few spots and the odd speck here and there but other than that the image is clean, clear, and very strong.
Red Lion is presented in Dolby Digital Mono in its original Japanese language with nice, clear, easy to read English subtitles. The track is clean and free of any hiss or distortion and sounds about as good as mono is going to sound.
Animeigo has included a few trailers for other Samurai Cinema releases, biographies for the key cast and crew members, a still gallery, and some interesting liner notes (these are on the disc, not an insert in the keepcase) that put the film into historical context and detail who did what on the movie and why.
The Final Word:
Red Lion is an intense and expertly made film with an amazing lead performance from Toshiro Mifune. Animeigo's disc is light on extras but is otherwise of very good quality indeed.