\n\tInside a feudal Japanese castle ringed by a warlord\u2019s army, a series of impossible killings begins to turn a besieged court against itself \u2014 and the cornered lord, unable to find the culprit, seeks counsel from the one man cunning enough to unmask the murderer: a brilliant strategist he has chained in his own dungeon.<\/p>\n
\n\tSuch is the set-up for The Samurai and the Prisoner<\/a>, the latest feature from director Kiyoshi Kurosawa<\/a>. Four and a half decades and some 30 films into his career, it is the acclaimed Japanese genre master\u2019s first samurai movie. Janus Films snapped up U.S. rights to the film after its world premiere at the Cannes<\/a> Film Festival in May and will release it in theaters on July 31. The company dropped the samurai saga\u2019s first trailer on Thursday (see it below). <\/p>\n \n\tFor Kurosawa \u2014 the restless genre stylist behind the serial-killer classic Cure, the J-horror landmark Pulse and, most recently, the psychological thriller Cloud \u2014 making a jidaigeki (Japan\u2019s genre of feudal samurai movies) had been one of the longest unrealized ambitions of his career. Set in Japan\u2019s 16th century Warring States period, The Samurai and the Prisoner is adapted from Honobu Yonezawa\u2019s 2021 novel Kokurojo, a winner of Japan\u2019s prestigious Naoki Prize.<\/p>\n \n\tMasahiro Motoki, star of the Oscar-winning drama Departures, plays Lord Araki Murashige, a real-life vassal who rebelled against the warlord Oda Nobunaga in 1578 and barricaded himself inside Arioka Castle. As Oda\u2019s forces press in from the outside, a killing within the walls spirals into a string of inexplicable crimes, and the besieged Murashige strikes an uneasy bargain with Kanbei (Masaki Suda, the recent lead of Kurosawa\u2019s Cloud), a dangerous strategist he has detained in his dungeon. The ensemble cast also includes Yuriko Yoshitaka, Joe Odagiri, Munetaka Aoki, Ryota Miyadate and Tasuku Emoto.<\/p>\n \n\tKurosawa, who also wrote the adaptation, shot the film in a richly shadowed classical style with cinematographer Yasuyuki Sasaki. It was produced by Shochiku \u2014 the 130-year-old studio behind Ozu\u2019s classics, as well as Departures \u2014 in association with Tokyo Broadcasting System Television. <\/p>\n