During the The Allied occupation of Japan at the end of World War II, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers banned performance of the story of the 47 Ronin in Japan, claiming that it promoted feudal values. The ban was lifted in 1947, and the first post-war film about the subject was released in 1952. Since then, numerous movies about the 47 Ronin has been made in Japan. One of the more notable ones is the 1962 Chūshingura: Hana no Maki, Yuki no Maki by highly acclaimed director Hiroshi Inagaki, who also directed the Acedmy Award-winning 1954 film Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto.
The title Chūshingura: Hana no Maki, Yuki no Maki means Chushingura: Story of Flower, Story of Snow, with chūshingura being the Japanese term used to denote fictionalized renditions of the 47 avenging ronin event. When the movie was released in the United States, it was given the title 47 Samurai. In Australia, it was released as The 47 Ronin.
Cast
- Matsumoto Hakuō I as Ōishi Kuranosuke, leader of the ronin
- Yūzō Kayama as Lord Asano Naganori
- Tatsuya Mihashi as Horibe Yasubei
- Akira Takarada as Takada Gunbee
- Yosuke Natsuki as Okano Kin’emon
- Makoto Satō as Fuwa Kazuemon
- Tadao Takashima as Jūjirō Hazama
- Toshiro Mifune as Genba Tawaraboshi
- Chūsha Ichikawa as Lord Kira Yoshinaka, the court official attacked by Lord Asano
- Akira Kubo as Lord Date
- Takashi Shimura as Hyōbu Chisaka
- Daisuke Katō as Kichiemon Terasaka
- Keiju Kobayashi as Awajinokami Wakisaka
- Ryō Ikebe as Chikara Tsuchiya
- Setsuko Hara as Riku
- Yoko Tsukasa as Yōzen’in
- Reiko Dan as Okaru
- Yuriko Hoshi as Otsuya
Basic information
Japanese name: (忠臣蔵 花の巻 雪の巻 (Transcribed as: Chūshingura: Hana no Maki, Yuki no Maki)
Release name in the USA: 47 Samurai
Release name in Australia: The 47 Ronin
Release date: 3 November 1962 (in Japan)
Running time: 3 hours and 27 minutes
Genre: Period drama
Director:
Hiroshi Inagaki
Producers:
Tomoyuki Tanaka
Sanezumi Fujimoto
Hiroshi Inagaki
Distributed by: Toho
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Music by: Akira Ifukube