The Invisible Swordsman
Alongside the town watchmen the former samurai Jubei defends his town bravely and diligently, but his disappointing son Sanshiro does not match the skill of his father, struggling with the sword lessons and practice enforced at the dojo run by the formidable Gennoshin yet inheriting the mantle of defender when his father is killed by the Phantom Thieves who attack at night, honour calling on him to seek revenge.
The town also troubled by Kanjo, a drunken ronin who harasses Sanshiro’s friend Osuzu as she attempts to bring flowers to the grave, calling on the spirits Sanshiro is visited by Shokera who tells him to gather three rare items and boil them under the moon to harvest their powers, chigo lily, suppon mushroom and hondawara seaweed, which together will render him and his kimono invisible, facilitating his quest to defend his town and people.
Released in 1970, The Invisible Swordsman (透明剣士, Tōmei Kenshi) was directed by Yoshiyuki Kuroda who later that decade worked on the television series Monkey, the script written by Tetsuro Yoshida within the same genre of tokusatsu, live-action drama influenced by the folklore of Japan with a heavy reliance on special effects, Sanshiro (Osamu Sakai) able to perceive the supernatural world and bargain with the entities which live there.
The manipulations of props, costumes and double exposure making Sanshiro invisible in order to undertake his task of defeating the superior forces of the enemy within, the plot is as broad as the wide-eyed gawking performances, The Invisible Swordsman apparently aimed at an audience as youthful and joyous as the children’s choir which sings the praises of the hero and his deeds under the opening and closing titles and more interesting when it moves to the more subdued and reflective netherworld rather than squabbling over stolen noodles.
The villain identified by his demonic tattoo, the revelation that it is the overbearing and acquisitive swordmaster is little surprise, and much weight is put in three supporting performers well known in Japan at the time, Bunshi Katsura as Kanjo and comedians Kiyoshi Nishikawa and Yasushi Yokoyama as two retainers, but failing to translate they are more of a distraction from what the film has to offer in the ethereal dealings with the Realm of the Dead as Sanshiro watches his father carried across the Sanzu River and tricks Death to save the apparently mortally wounded father of his beloved Osuzu (Yôko Atsuta).
Making its international Blu-Ray debut courtesy of Arrow, the picture surprisingly dark though possibly in deference to the arrangements necessary to create the illusion of invisibly handled weapons, their new edition of The Invisible Swordsman is supported by a commentary by Asian culture expert Jonathan Clements, a new interview with Japanese cinema expert Jasper Sharp and a discussion by Kim Newman on the history of invisibility in cinema including The Invisible Man and Forbidden Planet and some less easily spotted suspects.
The Invisible Swordsman is available on Blu-ray from Arrow Films now
