is a 1955 Japanese

jidaigeki is a genre of film, television, video game, and theatre in Japan. Literally meaning "period dramas", they are most often set during the Edo period of Japanese history, from 1603 to 1868. Some, however, are set much earlier—'' Portrait of H ...

and

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by

Tomu Uchida , born Tsunejirō Uchida on 26 April 1898, was a Japanese film director. The stage name "Tomu" translates to “spit out dreams”. Early career Uchida started out at the Taikatsu studio in the early 1920s, but came to prominence at Nikkatsu, ad ...

Plot

The samurai Sakawa Kojūrō is on the road to Edo with his two servants Genta and Genpachi. Kojūrō is a kindly master, but his character totally changes when he consumes alcohol. On the road, they encounter many different people: a traveling singer with her child, a father taking his daughter Otane to be sold into prostitution, a pilgrim, a policeman searching for a notorious thief, and Tōzaburō, the suspicious man the officer has his eyes on. Genpachi, the spear carrier, is also followed by an orphaned boy named Jirō who wants to be a samurai. When Kojūrō and Genpachi inadvertently capture the thief—who was the pilgrim in disguise—Kojūrō is disgusted when the authorities praise him and not his servant, even though Genpachi probably contributed more. He is also upset that he does not have the money to save Otane from being sold. In the end it is Tōzaburō who saves Otane, using the money he saved to rescue his own daughter, but decided to use for Otane after finding out his daughter had died. Depressed, Kojūrō takes Genta out drinking, despite the protests of the latter. When a band of boisterous samurai complain of Kojūrō drinking with someone of lower birth, Kojūrō gets upset. The samurai pull their swords and kill both the servant and his master. Genpachi arrives too late, but in a fury kills all the samurai with the spear. Authorities do not charge him with a crime, so he heads home carrying the ashes of Kojūrō and Genta. When Jirō tries to follow him, he shoos him off, telling him never to become a samurai.

Cast

* Chiezō Kataoka as Genpachi * Ryunosuke Tsukigata as Tōzaburō * Chizuru Kitagawa as the Shamisen player * Yuriko Tashiro as Otane *

Daisuke Katō was a Japanese actor. He appeared in over 200 films, including Akira Kurosawa's ''Seven Samurai'', ''Rashomon'', '' Yojimbo'', and ''Ikiru''. He also worked repeatedly for noted directors such as Yasujirō Ozu, Mikio Naruse and Kenji Mizoguchi ...

as Genta *

Eitarō Shindō was a Japanese film actor. He appeared in more than 300 films between 1936 and 1975. He is most closely associated with the work of Kenji Mizoguchi, with whom he made twelve films. Selected filmography * ''Sisters of the Gion'' (1936) * ''Ar ...

as the pilgrim * Toranosuke Ogawa * Kyoji Sugi * Yoshio Yoshida * Kunio Kaga * Teruo Shimada as Sakawa Kojūrō (credited as Eijirō Kataoka) * Chie Ueki as the Shamisen player's daughter * Motoharu Ueki as Jirō

Legacy

''Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji'' was screened in the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

as part of a retrospective on Tomu Uchida in 2016.

Awards

* 1956 Blue Ribbon Award for Best Supporting Actor Daisuke Katō

References

External links

* {{Tomu Uchida Japanese black-and-white films 1955 films Films directed by Tomu Uchida Toei Company films Jidaigeki films Samurai films Japanese adventure drama films 1950s adventure drama films 1950s Japanese films