Kon Ichikawa’s 1963 picture An Actor’s Revenge (Yukinojo Hinge; A.K.A Revenge of the Kabuki Actor) isn’t so much bad as it is difficult to engage. The first fifteen minutes are the toughest to get through, but while the remainder of the film is better, it is certainly no easy Saturday afternoon watch. Shot in a style reminiscent of the Kabuki theatre to which the film pays homage, this revenge piece is all melodrama. Typically this is not my fare, so I’ll concede that my opinion is openly biased.
I won’t go so far as to say that the film is without merit, but 1001’s praise as “one of the most outrageously entertaining Japanese films” is a bit over the top from any perspective. The story itself would seem simple enough, but a basic revenge plot becomes muddled as auxiliary characters clutter the narrative. I’ll write frankly (hoping not to come off as ignorant, or worse, a bigot) and say that the similarity between the Japanese names used helps to further this confusion. Still, I acknowledge that these complaints could be my ignorance coming through. I don’t dislike all melodrama. In fact, I’ve found several of the Douglas Sirk pictures which the list has directed me toward to be wholly rewarding. As for the similar names, I suspect that perhaps Ichikawa employs them to imply the similarity between his characters.
In all, as I make these concisions, I realize how drawn toward realism in film I am. Melodrama and fantasy tend to be lost on me. I don’t and won’t ever rule them out. Some very fine pictures are based in the surreal and the unreal, but the simplistic approach in set design in An Actor’s Revenge, which is intended to bring focus to the drama and the characters, feels like the cheap approach to me. When fantasy or science fiction do draw me into films, it’s usually when the filmmakers are wholly and completely dedicated to the alternate world which they create (Such as with Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or Blade Runner), and I just didn’t get that sense with this picture.
Grade: 1 Hat Off
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