REEL JAPAN

2025 Amazon Prime

Fittingly for a movie that focuses so much on the 18th century Edo government’s currency policy, IWANE, like a coin, has two sides: On one side, it is a conventional samurai film, shot brightly through modern lenses, with maximum stunt work pitting one style of swordplay against another, featuring a young warrior haunted by tragedy and the loss of his love. The other side of the coin reveals an utterly unconventional story about monetary policy, duels fought between friends, the selfless patriotism of one money-changer, dooms averted by love of mercantilism, and love doomed by mercantilism. This is a story that takes you places you never expected to go and refuses to return you to the places you expect to see again. For me the most memorable scene was of three young boys who are IWANE’s neighbors, catching an eel in a stream and then haggling with a restaurant owner over its sale price. Now that I think of it, that scene was prophetic. 

Now let’s see how many counterfeit silver coins we can exchange for gold: Most of the sword fights are well choreographed, though some of them are imbued with off-kilter emotions bubbling out of the jumbled screenplay. The performance by the lead, Matsuzaka Tori, carries the film, though his naivete and reluctance can be too much and too much of a trope. 

Our senior villain is money changer Urakusai played by screen veteran Emoto Akira. For decades Emoto has played every flavor of villain from a retainer who betrays his lord to an entrepreneur who steals curry recipes. Here he chews the scenery while sporting ten pounds worth of smallpox scars from the makeup department. He adopts obnoxiously slowed speech to spew vitriol, but he is effective as always. He is joined in the cast by one of his prolific actor-sons, Emoto Tasuku as Iwane’s closest friend. 

There are Samurai FILMS and there are Samurai MOVIES. A sophisticated, taut, auteur’s vision, IWANE is not. Based on a very long series of novels, it would have been better served as a TV series. A previous series ran from 2007 to 2010 starring Yamamoto Koji as Iwane. As a movie with a script stuffed like a Christmas fruitcake, it may charm you despite itself. Enough ambiguity crowns the climax to project thirst for a sequel. Next time, I hope they keep it quirky but streamline the bumpy road. 

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