Like its filmmaker Tokuzô Tanaka, The Betrayal has been largely sidelined by other jidaigeki (historical) and chanbara (samurai) films in Japan’s traditional canon, but this revelatory new release rewrites the record.
Ichikawa Raizô brilliantly brought Emil Cioran’s fatalistic attitude to life when he portrayed Kobuse Takuma in the 1966 film The Betrayal. Emil Cioran, that insomniac poet of pessimism, wrote, “Only optimists commit suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why would they have any to die?” Seemingly paradoxical at first, this aphoristic tidbit takes nihilism to its logical conclusion, noting that in a meaningless world, even meaninglessness itself lacks significance, and suicide becomes simply another pointless act.
Director Tokuzô Tanaka was mostly known for his installments in the great film series Shinobi, Zatoichi, and Sleepy Eyes of Death. However, he arguably shone brighter when untethered from franchises, as evidenced by The Betrayal and another Radiance release, The Snow Woman. Like its filmmaker, The Betrayal has been largely sidelined by other jidaigeki (historical) and chanbara (samurai) films in Japan’s traditional cinematic canon, but this revelatory new release rewrites the record.
The Betrayal follows a feud between the Minazuki and Iwashiro clans, with one tragic soul caught between them. Kobuse Takuma is a deeply skilled samurai loyal to the Minazukis. When their leader’s son disgracefully attacks an Iwashiro samurai from behind, Takuma is asked to take the fall. Engaged to the leader’s daughter and naïve to a fault, the young samurai agrees to be the secret scapegoat under the condition that, after one year of negotiations with the rival clan, the leader will reveal the truth and Takuma will be welcomed back.
Of course, “We plan, God laughs,” as the saying goes. Things don’t work out well for Takuma, whose dignity and innocence harden into calloused cynicism throughout the story. Raizô gives one of the best performances of his short life; he would die of cancer at the age of 37, just a few years after The Betrayal was released. He takes viewers through the process of Takuma’s disillusionment as anguish and desperation fade into the melancholic resignation of meaninglessness, embodying that nihilistic drift with surprising realism.
“A samurai’s word is meaningless. It’s ugly and mean. How absurd and foolish”, Takuma utters at one point, hiding in the dirt beneath tall reeds. “Samurai honor? Does such a thing exist? No.” This realization serves as a kind of thesis statement for The Betrayal, one which aligns it with the increasingly cynical register of Japanese films in the late 1960s as New Wave directors turned away from sunnier depictions of chivalry and codes of honor.
This makes The Betrayal seem like the neglected sibling to another 1966 masterpiece about a disenchanted and dangerous samurai, Kihachi Okamoto’s The Sword of Doom. Unlike that film’s main character, though, Raizô maintains the audience’s empathy throughout, making The Betrayal a more traditional tragedy.
Raizô’s performance is also a physically powerful one, with his character forced into combat on multiple occasions. As a result, The Betrayal features some excellent action set pieces in the improbable but exciting tradition of ikki tōsatsu (one man fighting many). Raizô’s visceral fight scenes find him rolling in the dirt, sweaty and unkempt, a supremely skilled samurai who is nonetheless vulnerable and human. Tanaka pauses on his lead actor from time to time, drawing attention to his physicality, be it Takuma’s heavy breathing or, in one unforgettable instance, the way he pulls his cramped fingers off the hilt of his sword.
The final fight scene of The Betrayal features its most dazzling display of action, with Takuma against the world. The sequence plays like a Greatest Hits of Tanaka’s career up to that point, utilizing the many skills he learned as an assistant director to the auteurs Kenji Mizoguchi and Akira Kurosawa. It’s a long, dynamic, and breathtaking sequence that demands respect and legitimizes Tanaka as a truly A-list filmmaker.
Regardless of the excellent action in The Betrayal, it’s really Raizô’s portrayal of the film’s philosophical themes that lingers longest after the haunting, ambiguous final shot. His character exists halfway between wisdom and self-destruction, pulsating with a fading anger as Takuma gradually gives up on this life that betrays us all. Unlike most samurai films, the conclusive question of The Betrayal isn’t whether Takuma dies; it’s whether he cares one way or the other.