Heiners Filmseiten – A Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji (en)

A Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji (Chiyari Fuji)

Francaise title: Le Mont Fuji et la lance ensanglantée
Spain title: Una lanza ensangrentada en el Monte Fuji
Russian title: Окровавленное копьё на горе Фудзи
Original title: Chiyari Fuji

Tragicomedy – Japan
Production year: 1954
Movie length: 94 minutes

Director: Tomu Uchida
Writer: Shintarô Mimura, Fuji Yahiro, Kintarô Inoue, Toshio Tamikado
Cinematograph: Sadaji Yoshida
Music: Taichirô Kosugi

Movie description:

The samurai Sakawa Kojūro is on the road to Edo with his two servants Genta and Gonpachi. Kojūro is a kindly master, but his character totally changes when he consumes alcohol. On the road, they encounter many different people: a traveling singer with her child, a father taking his daughter Otane to be sold into prostitution, a pilgrim, a policeman searching for a notorious thief, and Tozaburo, the suspicious man the officer has his eyes on. Gonpachi, the spear carrier, is also followed by an orphaned boy named Jiro who wants to be a samurai. When Kojūro and Genpachi inadvertently capture the thief – who was the pilgrim in disguise – Kojūro is disgusted when the authorities praise him and not his servant, even though Gonpachi probably contributed more. He is also upset that he does not have the money to save Otane from being sold. In the end it is Tozaburo who saves Otane, using the money he saved to rescue his own daughter, but decided to use for Otane after finding out his daughter had died. Depressed, Kojūro takes Genta out drinking, despite the protests of the latter. When a band of boisterous samurai complain of Kojūro drinking with someone of lower birth, Kojūro gets upset. The samurai pull their swords and kill both the servant and his master. Gonpachi arrives too late, but in a fury kills all the samurai with the spear. Authorities do not charge him with a crime, so he heads home carrying the ashes of Kojūro and Genta. When Jiro tries to follow him, he shook him off, telling him never to become a samurai.

Gonpachi is a spear-carrier and a good-natured vassal of a minor rural lord, Sakawa Kojūro. Having injured his foot along the road, the spearman is intent on his simple duty, limping along holding the spear upright in a ceremonial fashion. He is deeply moved when his master gives him a salve and permits him to rest on the roadside. While dressing his foot, Gonpachi meets, gruffly and unwillingly, an intrusive, wandering little orphan named Jiro, who soon wins him over. He even lets the boy carry the spear. The relationship with Jiro provides one tiny plot-thread in the elaborately woven story, lasting to the very endÂ ...

Boy Actors