Some of the most famous jidaigeki (period dramas) are mystery stories: Think of Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon” (1950) or Masaki Kobayashi’s “Harakiri” (1962). All the same, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “The Samurai and the Prisoner” is a curious proposition.
Adapted by the director from Honobu Yonezawa’s Naoki Prize-winning 2021 novel “Kokurojo,” it uses one of the most tumultuous eras in Japanese history as the backdrop for a slow-burning whodunnit in the Agatha Christie mold.
It’s 1578 and Araki Murashige (Masahiro Motoki) is in a bit of a pickle. The provincial lord has turned against his former master, the despotic warlord Oda Nobunaga, and is now holed up in a castle surrounded by the latter’s forces. Morale among his forces is still good, but a murder within the citadel’s grounds is now threatening to undermine his authority.
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