Sansho Dayu = Sansho the bailiff

The story of Sansho Dayu, set in the harsh feudal world of eleventh century Japan, is based on an ancient legend. The son and daughter of a noble family are kidnapped and sold as slaves to a tyrannical bailiff, Sansho. The son, young Zushio (Hanayagi), is left with a creed of compassion from his exiled father, “Without mercy, a man is like a beast”. The film is played out as a parable of redemption, a struggle for the soul of Zushio, torn between his good (but absent) father, exiled for daring to treat peasants as human beings, and the ‘bad’ father, bailiff Sansho, into whose clutches he falls and whose cruel attitudes he starts to adopt. Years later, the son escapes and is reunited with his now blind, crippled and impoverished mother. Mizoguchi’s haunting cinematography translates into a humanist statement of injustice and suffering. Based on the novel “Sansho Dayu” by Ogai Mori. Cast includes Kinuyo Tanaka, Yoshiaki Hanayagi, Kyoko Kagawa and Eitaro Shindo. In Japanese with English subtitles.