Mekura no Oichi Midaregasa
Watch Out, Crimson Bat!
- Release Date
- October, 1st, 1969
- Running Time
- 87 min
- Genre
- Feature
- Color
- -
- Screening Format
- -
[ Directed by ]
[ Cast ]
[ Staff ]
- TANASHITA Teruo ── Original Story
- NAOI Kinya ── Screenplay
- HATTORI Yoshi ── Screenplay
[ Production Company ]
SHOCHIKU
[ Distributor (Japan) ]
SHOCHIKU
[ Story ]
Oichi (Yoko Matsuyama), a blind swordswoman, finds a dying young man who asks her to take charge of a small sack.
While carrying the sack, she is attacked by two masked men on a bridge and only just manages to kill them. Then she is challenged by a strange ronin named Gennosuke (Goro Ibuki). Suddenly he disappears and Oichi finds the sack is missing. She is then surrounded by several samurai and slips into a river.
Oichi regains consciousness in a small cabin to find Gennosuke at her side, but he denies that he has the sack.
He tells her that the clan dominating the area plots rebellion against the Shogunate whose samurai attacked her, because the sack contained the prescription for a newly invented gun-powder. The clan has been trying to make Tessai (Jun Hamamura), a former gun instructor, reveal the secret of the gunpowder, but he refuses. For he hates the clan which carries out explosion tests at the sacrifice of innocent farmers who are forced to work at the dangerous experiments. Gennosuke is one of Tessai's disciples and engaged to marry his daughter Kotoe (Kiyoko Inoue).
He tells Oichi that he lost the sack in the river while rescuing her, and they set out in search for it.
They find the sack in a small village, and while Oichi has fallen in love with Gennosuke, she decides to leave because of Kotoe.
Then hearing that Tessai and Gennosuke have been seized by the clan, she hurries to their rescue.
A fierce fight ensues and Sakon (Asahi Kurizuka), a swordsman hired by the clan to kill Oichi and Gennosuke, suddenly takes sides with them, for he has become disgusted with the clan's cruelty.
With the enemy defeated and intrigue of the clan prevented, Oichi starts again on her vagabond journey.
【Quoted from Unijapan Film Quarterly 1970 13.1】
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