''The Bushido Blade'' is a 1981 film directed by Tom Kotani.

Sonny Chiba , known internationally as Sonny Chiba, was a Japanese actor and martial artist. Chiba was one of the first actors to achieve stardom through his skills in martial arts, initially in Japan and later before an international audience. Born in Fuku ...

Toshiro Mifune was a Japanese actor who appeared in over 150 feature films. He is best known for his 16-film collaboration (1948–1965) with Akira Kurosawa in such works as ''Rashomon'', ''Seven Samurai'', ''The Hidden Fortress'', ''Throne of Blood'', and '' ...

Mako , better known by the mononym name Mako (sometimes stylised MAKO), is a Japanese voice actress, singer and a member of the band Bon-Bon Blanco, in which her prominent role is as the maraca player. She has also performed in a Japanese television d ...

Laura Gemser Laurette Marcia Gemser (born 5 October 1950) is an Indonesian-Dutch retired actress, model and costume designer. She is primarily known for her work in Italian erotic cinema, most notably the ''Emanuelle'' series. Many of her films were collabo ...

and

James Earl Jones James Earl Jones (born January 17, 1931) is an American actor. He has been described as "one of America's most distinguished and versatile" actors for his performances in film, television, and theater, and "one of the greatest actors in America ...

appear in this film. It was filmed in 1978, but not released until 1981. This was

Richard Boone Richard Allen Boone (June 18, 1917 – January 10, 1981) was an American actor who starred in over 50 films and was notable for his roles in Westerns, including his starring role in the television series ''Have Gun – Will Travel''. Early lif ...

's last film appearance.

Plot

''The Bushido Blade'' is a fictional sideline to the true events surrounding the treaty

Commodore Commodore may refer to: Ranks * Commodore (rank), a naval rank ** Commodore (Royal Navy), in the United Kingdom ** Commodore (United States) ** Commodore (Canada) ** Commodore (Finland) ** Commodore (Germany) or ''Kommodore'' * Air commodore, a ...

Matthew Perry Matthew Langford Perry (born August 19, 1969) is an American-Canadian actor. He is best known for his role as Chandler Bing on the NBC television sitcom ''Friends'' (1994–2004). As well as starring in the short-lived television series ''Stud ...

signed with the shogun of

feudal Japan The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to Japanese Paleolithic, prehistoric times around 30,000 BC. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millenni ...

. The

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

sword A sword is an edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed ti ...

entrusted to Commodore Perry for President Franklin Pierce of the United States by the

Emperor of Japan The Emperor of Japan is the monarch and the head of the Imperial House of Japan, Imperial Family of Japan. Under the Constitution of Japan, he is defined as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, and his positio ...

is stolen by factions wishing to maintain Japanese isolationism. The sword is stolen by

Baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knig ...

Zen, who is a servant of

Lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or ar ...

Yamato, who opposes the

Convention of Kanagawa The Convention of Kanagawa, also known as the Kanagawa Treaty (, ''Kanagawa Jōyaku'') or the Japan–US Treaty of Peace and Amity (, ''Nichibei Washin Jōyaku''), was a treaty signed between the United States and the Tokugawa Shogunate on March ...

about to be signed. Commodore Akira Hayashi is told to recover the sword and, as a matter of honor, not sign the treaty until it is recovered.

Prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. Th ...

Ido has received Hayashi's order to regain the sword and goes to the castle of Yamato alone. Similarly, Perry has ordered Captain Lawrence Hawk to retrieve the sword. Hawk brings Midshipman Robin Gurr and Crew Bos'n Cave Johnson. The three get separated and the movie centers on their stories.

Cast

;Principal actors *

as Commodore

Matthew C. Perry Matthew Calbraith Perry (April 10, 1794 – March 4, 1858) was a commodore of the United States Navy who commanded ships in several wars, including the War of 1812 and the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). He played a leading role in the o ...

as Prince Ido (as Sony Chiba) *

Frank Converse Frank Converse (born May 22, 1938) is an American actor. Early life Converse was born in 1938 in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1962, he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in drama at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in ...

as Captain Lawrence Hawk *

as Tomoe *

as the prisoner (a crew member of the

whaling ship A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized vessel, designed or adapted for whaling: the catching or processing of whales. Terminology The term ''whaler'' is mostly historic. A handful of nations continue with industrial whaling, and one, Japa ...

) *

Mako Iwamatsu was a Japanese-American actor, credited mononymously in almost all of his acting roles as simply Mako. His film roles include Po-Han in ''The Sand Pebbles'' (1966) (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor), O ...

as Enjirō (as Mako) * Timothy Murphy as Midshipman Robin Gurr * Michael Starr as L/S Cave Johnson *

Tetsurō Tamba was a Japanese actor with a career spanning five decades. He is best known in the West for his role in the 1967 James Bond film '' You Only Live Twice'' as Tiger Tanaka. Biography Tamba had a part-time job as an interpreter at Supreme Commande ...

as Lord Yamato *

Toshirō Mifune was a Japanese actor who appeared in over 150 feature films. He is best known for his 16-film collaboration (1948–1965) with Akira Kurosawa in such works as ''Rashomon'', ''Seven Samurai'', ''The Hidden Fortress'', ''Throne of Blood'', and '' ...

as Commodore Akira Hayashi ;Supporting roles * Bin Amatsu as Baron Zen *

Mayumi Asano is a Japanese voice actress who is currently part of Office Osawa. Filmography Television Video games *'' Armored Core: Last Raven'' (2005) – Zinaida *'' Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2'' (2017) – Baiken *''Samurai Shodown'' (2021) – Baiken *''T ...

as Yuki * Kin Ōmae as Rikishi (

sumo wrestler A , or, more colloquially, , is a professional sumo wrestler. follow and live by the centuries-old rules of the sumo profession, with most coming from Japan, the only country where sumo is practiced professionally. Participation in official ...

) (as Kin Omai)

Crew

Film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...

- Tom Kotani *

Executive producer Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the making of a commercial entertainment product. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights o ...

Jules Bass Julius Bass (September 16, 1935 – October 25, 2022) was an American director, producer, lyricist, composer, and author. Until 1960, he worked at a New York advertising agency, and then co-founded the film production company Videocraft Interna ...

Associate producer A film producer is a person who oversees film production. Either employed by a production company or working independently, producers plan and coordinate various aspects of film production, such as selecting the script, coordinating writing, dir ...

- Benni Korzen, Masaki Îzuka * Producer -

Arthur Rankin, Jr. Arthur Gardner Rankin Jr. (July 19, 1924 – January 30, 2014) was an American director, producer and writer, who mostly worked in animation. Co-creator of Rankin/Bass Productions with his friend Jules Bass, he created stop-motion animation ...

Writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

William Overgard William Overgard (April 30, 1926''Comics Buyer's Guide'' #1485; May 3, 2002; Page 29 – May 25, 1990), was an American cartoonist and writer with a diverse opus, including novels, screenplays, animation, and the comic strips '' Steve Roper a ...

Music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

Maury Laws Maury Laws (December 6, 1923 – March 28, 2019) was an American television and film composer from Burlington, North Carolina. Biography In his teens, Laws performed in local country, jazz and dance bands as a singer and guitarist in his home st ...

Cinematography Cinematography (from ancient Greek κίνημα, ''kìnema'' "movement" and γράφειν, ''gràphein'' "to write") is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography. Cinematographers use a lens to focu ...

- Shōji Ueda *

Editing Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, photographic, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, orga ...

- Yoshitami Kuroiwa * Post-production executive -

Robert D. Cardona Robert Daniel Cardona (born March 7, 1930) is an American television writer, producer, director and animator. He co-founded Clearwater Features, along with David Mitton, in 1980. Career Cardona has been based in the United Kingdom for much of ...

* Editorial consultant - Anne V. Coates *

Production manager In the cinema of the United States, a unit production manager (UPM) is the Directors Guild of America–approved title for the top below-the-line staff position, responsible for the administration of a feature film or television production. Non- ...

- Kishirô Ōkubo * 1st assistant direction - Kouichi Nakajima *

Lighting Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylig ...

- Kazuo Shimomura *

Art director Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film industry, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and ...

- Toyokazu Ôhashi *

Sound recording Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording te ...

- Yūji Miyoshi * Sound editor - Ian Crafford * Sound re-recording -

Paul Carr (composer) Paul Carr (born 1961) is an English classical music composer. Born in Cornwall, he has been writing music since the age of 15. He studied voice at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and worked in opera stage management before concentrating on ...

* Dueling master - Ryu Kuze * Production secretary - Barbara Hilse *

U.S.Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...

coordination - Commodore William North, U.S.N.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bushido Blade 1981 films 1981 drama films 1980s historical films American drama films British drama films 1980s Japanese-language films Films scored by Maury Laws Films set in the 1850s Films set in Japan Samurai films Rankin/Bass Productions films Films directed by Tsugunobu Kotani Japan in non-Japanese culture 1980s English-language films 1980s American films 1980s British films

Plot

Cast

Crew

See also

References

External links