Loved 'Shogun'? Watch This New 98%-Rated Historical Drama Currently in Theaters

If you were captivated by Shogun, the epic saga of feudal Japan, political intrigue, and the samurai code of honor, then Kiyoshi Kurosawa's new historical drama, The Samurai and the Prisoner, is the perfect choice.

This contemplative detective story delves into themes of power, religion, and the value of human life.

What Is 'The Samurai and the Prisoner' About?

Japan, 1578. Oda Nobunaga is reassembling the fragmented country into a future state. Suddenly, Oda's former general, Araki Murashige, rebels against his master and locks himself in Arioka Castle.

Renowned strategist Kuroda Kanbei arrives, hoping to persuade the rebel to reconsider. Instead, he finds himself shackled in a dungeon. Mysterious murders then begin to occur within the fortress.

Kanbei is the only person with whom the general can discuss the crimes. Thanks to Kanbei's clues, the general is able to find traitors within his own ranks. There're four investigations, each corresponding to a season and testing a different aspect of the world in which the characters live.

'The Samurai and the Prisoner' Isn't a Samurai Action Movie, but Rather a Meditative Detective Story About Power

In The Samurai and the Prisoner, the director's mysteries do not so much answer the question, "Who is the killer?" as they do explore the moral voids in the samurai code.

Murashige is an extremely awkward hero for a classic samurai movie: he is a man who has been killing for too long to continue treating death as an abstract part of the code.

The inversion of power that emerges near the end is striking. One character roams the castle freely but is surrounded by Nobunaga's army and burdened by the distrust of his vassals. The other is imprisoned but has true freedom – the ability to view the situation from an outsider's perspective.

The downside of The Samurai and the Prisoner is its overt theatricality. Kurosawa films statically due to the specific locations – the illusion of medieval Japan can easily be shattered by a careless camera angle.

The movie runs over two hours, and the entire runtime is devoted to conversations, and the four-part structure, built around the changing seasons, sometimes becomes too pronounced.

However, repetition is also part of the design: as Nobunaga's army closes in on Arioka, Murashige's range of hypothetical responses grows.

The Samurai and the Prisoner is a ponderous, viscous, almost anti-samurai movie in which the actual war is barely visible, but the main battle unfolds around man's self-image.

What Did Critics & Viewers Think of 'The Samurai and the Prisoner'?

• The Samurai and the Prisoner has 98% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

• On IMDb, the movie has a score of 7.0/10.

• On Letterboxd, The Samurai and the Prisoner scored 3.6/5.0.