A whodunit set in 1578 Japan, The Samurai and the Prisoner plays like something Agatha Christie might have written after binge-watching a bunch of Akira Kurosawa. In fact, this comes from writer-director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, best known for the psychological thrillers Cure and Pulse, here adapting the Honobu Yonezawa novel. The plot centers on Lord Murashige Araki (Masahiro Motoki), whose castle is under siege by a powerful warlord. When crimes begin occurring within the castle walls, he’s also faced with deceit from within. Kurosawa mostly frames this as a series of prying conversations—including some with the conniving condemned man of the title, who is being held in the castle’s dungeon—all of which are conducted with ceremonial pomp and take place in grand, historical settings (much of the movie was filmed in castles and temples around Kyoto). Just when you think the film has become too talky, Kurosawa delivers a terrifically staged sequence involving a lightning bolt that literally jolts the proceedings. As Araki, Motoki paints a portrait of a man who is at once warrior, diplomat, husband, and sleuth; what’s more, he tries to balance all of that with a newfound conscience, having come to believe that “killing gains nothing,” even as his samurai culture insists otherwise. As such, there’s a moral weight to The Samurai and the Prisoner that not even Christie always had.
(8/3/2026)
