THE SAMURAI AND THE PRISONER | 黒牢城

JAPAN | 2026 | COLOR | DCP | 147’ | JAPANESE

In 16th-century feudal Japan, a warlord faces the imminent siege of his castle and, at the same time, a series of mysterious crimes taking place within its walls. He therefore seeks the help of a prisoner of dubious intentions in order to solve these crimes. Although bearing nearly 40 years of experience behind the camera, during which time he has established himself as one of the most important directors in contemporary Japanese cinema, Kiyoshi Kurosawa had never directed a jidaigeki – a samurai epic, perhaps the most characteristic film genre of his homeland. The time to change that came this year, with an ingenious blend of historical drama and mystery film that could well have been penned by Agatha Christie and directed by cinema’s other great Kurosawa, the incomparable Akira. But who, then, is the true prisoner in this story? Is it the man chained in the castle’s dungeon, whose spirit remains unbroken, or is it the man forced to conform to the conventions of his era and society, often against his own wishes and convictions? Vaggelis Vitsikas

DIRECTOR: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
SCREENWRITER: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
DoP: Yasuyuki Sasaki
MUSIC: Yoshihiro Hanno
EDITOR: Koichi Takahashi
PRINCIPAL CAST: Masahiro Motok, Masaki Suda, Yuriko Yoshitaka, Joe Odagiri, Munetaka Aoki, Ryota Miyadate, Tasuku Emoto

KIYOSHI KUROSAWA
Japanese filmmaker, critic and academic, born in 1955. He studied at Rikkyo University in Tokyo and later in the United States. He started in the yakuza genre and Japanese pink films before emerging in the 1990s. A prolific filmmaker, he has been strongly influenced by western auteurs and has been honoured by international film festivals.

FILMOGRAPHY (SELECTED)
2026 The Samurai and the Prisoner
2024 Cloud
2020 Wife of a Spy
2019 To the Ends of the Earth
2017 Before We Vanish
2016 Creepy
2008 Tokyo Sonata
2006 Retribution
2001 Pulse
2000 Séance
1997 Cure