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THE HAUNTED SAMURAI

TSUKIGAMI

By Yasuo FURUHATA

TOEI COMPANY, LTD. - as SALES All rights, World

Drama - Completed 2007

A low-ranked samurai struggles to escape from the three Gods of disaster who haunt him one after another.

- Year of production
- 2007
- Genres
- Drama, Historical
- Countries
- JAPAN
- Languages
- JAPANESE
- Budget
- 5 - 10 M$
- Duration
- 107 mn
- Director(s)
- Yasuo FURUHATA
- Writer(s)
- Yasuo FURUHATA
- Cast
- Satoshi TSUMABUKI, Teruyuki KAGAWA, Toshiyuki NISHIDA
- Producer(s)
- Sunao SAKAGAMI, Yoshitaka HORI
- Synopsis
- The final days of ancient Japan: Yoshinobu, the last of the Tokugawa Shoguns, has gone to the emperor’s ancient capital of Kyoto, leaving Edo empty and listless.
  Hikoshiro Bessho feels as listless as Edo itself. A low-ranked samurai, he comes of a proud lineage of body doubles to the Shogun, and his accomplishments inspired great hopes before he was disowned by the wealthy family into which he had married.
  Torn from his wife and child, left without employment, he now idles away his time at his elder brother’s home, his mother his only ally. Takeaki Enomoto, an old school friend, has risen in the world, and a social gulf has opened between them. Told that Enomoto has succeeded because of his visits to the famous Mimeguri ‘lookout point’ Shrine, Hikoshiro comes upon an old riverbank shrine also called ‘Mimeguri’, although its characters mean ‘chance encounter’. Assuming it is a branch of the famous shrine, he prays there.
  Now he meets what seems to be a wealthy merchant, and happily concludes from such opulence that his prayers have summoned the God of Wealth.
  But, says the deity, ‘I am the God of Poverty’. The shrines were not the same. Hikoshiro has summoned the wrong god. Still, he thinks, he cannot become any poorer than he is.
  But his older brother has debts, and the family is in dire straits.
  Hikoshiro asks help from even his estranged in-laws. Their servant tries to exorcise the God of Poverty, but the deity is invulnerable. The only escape is to bring catastrophe on someone else, so Hikoshiro resorts to a secret ‘change of lodging’ rite, and the God leaves him.
  But as he sighs in relief a giant sumo wrestler appears before him. The picture of good health, he is in reality the God of Disease. Hikoshiro grows steadily weaker, and broods over what point there is in living.
  His ‘chance encounter’ has brought three deities of catastrophe. Last to appear is an angelic little girl, in reality the Goddess of Death.
  None of these Gods look anything like ‘Poverty’, ‘Disease’, or ‘Death’. Their appearance is benign, but they are more powerful than even the gods of such famous shrines as Izumo and Ise, and the damage they inflict is huge.
  But as Hikoshiro struggles with these gods of vicissitude, a change takes place. The gods take on human characteristics, while Hikoshiro, rather than merely fleeing them, begins to think how to overcome his plight. Takeaki Enomoto and Kaishu Katsu, historical figures in the modernization of Japan, ask Hikoshiro for help. Is it good fortune or bad that awaits him now?