Tsukigami

The Haunted Samurai

憑神

Release Date: June, 23rd, 2007

Running Time: 107 min

Genre: Feature

Color: Color

Screening Format: 35mm

Screen Size: -

Sound Processing: -

[ Directed by ]

FURUHATA Yasuo

[ Produced by ]

[ Cast ]

TSUMABUKI Satoshi ── BESSHO Hikoshiro
NISHIDA Toshiyuki ── ISEYA

[ Staff ]

FURUHATA Yasuo ── Screenplay
KOKUBO Toshimi ── Screenplay
TSUCHIYA Yasufumi ── Screenplay
ASADA Jiro ── Original Story
KIMURA Daisaku ── Director of Photography
SONOI Kouichi ── Editor
Meyna Co. ── Music
MATSUMIYA Toshiyuki ── Production Design

[ Production Company ]

THE HAUNTED SAMURAI Production Committee

[ Story ]

Asada Jiro's novel of the same title has been adapted to film by Furuhata Yasuo of Kura and The Firefly (Hotaru). The collaboration of this pair is the first time since Railroad Man (Poppoya), which won the Best Picture of the Year award at the Japan Academy Prize in 2000. The film comically depicts a low-grade samurai who struggles having unwittingly drawn the attention of the three gods of misfortune.
At the end of the Edo Era when the hierarchical system was very strict. Bessho Hikoshiro (Tsumabuki Satoshi) is a lower-class samurai despite his talent in both literary and military arts. He feels stigmatized ever since he was thrown out of the family he married into. Feeling desperate for any help, Bessho visits a shrine and prays for his advancement, however, the shrine turns out to be dedicated to gods of misfortunes. Before long, Bessho is followed by three gods of misfortune; a good natured god of poverty (Nishida Toshiyuki), a god of plague (Akai Hidekazu) who looks like a Sumo wrestler, and a god of death appearing as a young girl. Bessho struggles to free himself from his bad luck, but then he comes to terms with his fate. Having met the god of death, Bessho realizes the meaning of life, and he decides to accept his end as a proud Samurai.