OVERVIEW
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s first samurai period film brings the director’s usual exploration of paranoia and violence emerging from orderly systems to feudal Japan, following a samurai who begins questioning his code as the social order around him collapses. Set during the Sengoku period, the film follows Murashige Araki, lord of Arioka Castle, after he rebels against Oda Nobunaga and finds his stronghold surrounded by enemy forces. When a mysterious murder inside the castle raises suspicions of a traitor among his own men, Murashige turns to the imprisoned strategist Kanbei Kuroda for help uncovering the truth, even as distrust begins spreading through the castle.
BACKGROUND
After years of wanting to make a samurai film, Kiyoshi Kurosawa finally got the opportunity when Honobu Yonezawa approached him about adapting Kokurōjō, his award-winning 2021 novel that shared many of the director’s recurring themes. Having already worked across horror, thrillers, crime, science fiction, romance, and even family drama, Kurosawa approached the project looking to his country’s cinema of the 1950s, particularly the films of Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival before beginning a limited theatrical run in the summer of 2026.
THE REVIEW
Shot in an almost square aspect ratio and muted colors, with Kurosawa considering black and white before ultimately deciding against it, The Samurai and the Prisoner finds a great balance between paying respect to the films that inspired it and making a Japanese samurai film that still feels distinctly his own. Yasuyuki Sasaki’s cinematography is particularly reverent, favoring long takes and a camera that rarely moves, with most of the dynamism coming from the mise en scène and the positioning of actors within the frame rather than from cutting.
The dialogue scenes are the most interesting, especially those between Murashige and Kanbei, where those technical choices enhance the fascinating dynamic already present in the screenplay. History has often treated Murashige as a coward who abandoned his post, but the film reframes him as someone willing to question rules that others follow blindly. This occasionally confounds Kanbei, a strategist who always seems several steps ahead of everyone around him and counts on predictable human behavior to execute his plans even while imprisoned.
There are moments when the unexpected connection between them recalls The Silence of the Lambs, particularly in the way Kanbei, always focused on his own agenda, becomes strangely fascinated by how Murashige thinks. Like that film, The Samurai and the Prisoner is smart enough to keep the dynamic that gives it its title relatively infrequent. Each encounter lasts only a few minutes, often captured in an uninterrupted shot as the two engage in something resembling a chess match fought through carefully chosen words.
Kanbei is played by Masaki Suda, who previously collaborated with Kurosawa on Cloud, and once again his expressions make him difficult to decipher. Yet there is rarely any doubt that he remains in control, even while chained. Kurosawa and Sasaki reinforce this visually by frequently placing him higher in the frame, even when he is farther from the camera, while Murashige is repeatedly confined to its lower corners. Suda is particularly effective at suggesting subtle mischief as Kanbei toys with Murashige’s questions. Even when Murashige starts believing that the prisoner may be empathizing with him, we never completely trust that he is.
It is a shame that the mystery surrounding these encounters is never nearly as compelling. A good mystery should give us enough information to form theories while constantly finding ways to make us doubt them, but the investigation here rarely creates that kind of tension. It starts promisingly with the first killing inside the castle, but gradually loses momentum as more murders take place. The invisible threat of Oda and the strange relationship developing between Kanbei and Murashige become considerably more interesting than discovering who is responsible for what is happening inside the walls. The mystery attempts to connect itself to those larger ideas, but too often feels like a diversion from them.
Murashige also becomes a much stronger character when contrasted with Kanbei than when interacting with the supporting cast. By design, he lacks some of the gravitas needed in those other relationships and appears humbled too frequently, particularly around his wife and during an attempt on his life. Keeping more of that vulnerability hidden and allowing Kanbei to be the person capable of stripping away his façade could have made their encounters even more impactful.
Also holding the film back are its sporadic action scenes. They may resemble the samurai films of the 1950s in their staging, but without the abstraction of black and white, the choreography can look noticeably theatrical and rehearsed. Given how important some of these confrontations are to the narrative, they needed greater impact. Instead, they are among the rare moments when the artificiality of the production pulls you out of the film.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Samurai and the Prisoner ultimately contains some of my favorite individual scenes of the year without quite adding up to a film that can compete with either Kurosawa’s best work or the samurai classics it evokes. Its mystery and worldbuilding are extremely dense, and because the investigation unfolds more episodically than as a thriller naturally building in intensity, the film never fully convinces us why we should put so much effort into deciphering it, especially when simply keeping track of its historical context and large cast already demands considerable attention.
The conclusion is similarly only satisfying enough. Yet the moments when a samurai begins questioning the ideology that has guided his entire life while a master strategist discovers that this makes him unexpectedly difficult to predict are fascinating. Their conversations are where Kurosawa’s familiar interests in systems, violence, and human behavior find their most compelling expression, and they are what stay with you after the film is over.