The Samurai and the Prisoner
Fresh from Cannes, this knockout historical thriller from genre master Kiyoshi Kurosawa finds mysteries afoot in a castle’s locked rooms.
In 16th-century Japan, samurai lord Murashige Araki (Masahiro Motoki, Departures) is barricaded inside his own fortress, awaiting an attack from powerful rival warlord Nobunaga Oda. When Nobunaga’s famously wily envoy Kanbei Kuroda (Masaki Suda) arrives to deliver a warning, an enraged Murashige locks him in his dungeon. But after an unexplainable murder occurs within the castle walls, the embattled daimyō must turn to his prisoner, whose katana-sharp wits could help solve this crime – and to navigate the other mysteries and treacheries besieging Murashige.
Eclectic veteran filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cloud, MIFF 2025) adds the samurai movie to his bag of tricks with this latest Cannes-premiering work, an adaptation of an award-winning 2021 novel by Honobu Yonezawa matching Cloud star Suda against a career-best Motoki. A tale of palace intrigue told via whodunnit riddles, The Samurai and the Prisoner is an epic crowdpleaser drawing on the contemplative, classical simplicity of mid-20th-century Japanese filmmaking.
“Kurosawa has made one of his best films, a work that feels a bit like Agatha Christie, a bit like Shakespeare, and even a bit like Samurai Columbo. It’s a dense chamber piece with big ideas and riveting performances.” – RogerEbert.com
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