It'd be nice if I could claim to have a love/hate relationship with Raizo Ichikawa's most famous character, Kyoshiro Nemuri, whom he played in twelve films. But I definitely feel mainly love/love.
The character is so deeply misogynist. It's an intentional defining trait for his character, & even Raizo said he had trouble playing some of the scenes, feeling uncomfortable portraying a woman-killer. One would assume women really couldn't like these films very much.
Fact is, though, the Raizo Ichikawa fan club, still active decades after his death, is almost exclusively women (the few men are usually gay).
The cruelty of Kyoshiro the rogue of rogues in his attitudes against women never stopped his fan base from swooning at his great good looks, surprisingly advanced acting ability & perfection in the role of an arrogant scoundral, the first samurai "hero" of the cinema who was capable of cutting down even unarmed women without thinking twice, just so long as he personally assessed them as wiley, manipulative, or evil.
If what I have with with Kyoshiro Nemuri is a love/love relationship, that just puts me in the same basket with a lot of viewers who, whether or not uneasy by Kyoshiro's awful nature, sure wouldn't mind tempting the fates in his glorious presence, supposing he actually existed.
 Of course Raizo was no more Kyoshiro than he was the stuttering firebug in Enjo (1958). Plus, a fantasy rapist is not the same thing as a rapist, so no reason for women to find him too awfully deplorable, & it's not like Raizo never played anything else.
Even so, there's an undeniable double standard regarding the nature of evil in Kyoshiro Nemurai's adventures. Was he Raizo's most popular character because of other traits, or could it really be that a major part of Kyoshiro's appeal is in the fact that he rapes & murders women?
Who he played was half-European (bastard son whose father sired him on a Japanese woman captive at a Black Mass). There may well be a subliminally racist sentiment in Japan that only long-nosed devils from the west could be as cooly wicked as to rape & murder women & still pose as heroic.
 In Occupation Japan & for a couple decades after, & to a lesser degree today, half-breed Japanese were regarded as prone to criminality & deviation, were denied easy access to education, & frequently ended up in the sex trade or yakuza gangs fulfilling the expectation.
Such real-life social stigma & prejudice inescapably provided one layer of expectation for half-breed Kyoshiro Nemuri, too.
Or, if there always is some "justification" for killing women who have been manipulative & have caused death, why is Kyoshiro with a similar roster of crimes allowed to just go walking into the sunrise like a heroic survivor?
However it is analyzed, in the summation it will always remain that Raizo portrayed a character who menaces women yet by some mystique never loses his powerful appeal.
 In The Full Moon Swordsman & the Pirates aka Sleepy Eyes of Death: Sword of Fire (Nemuri Kyoshiro Enjo-ken, 1965), Kyoshiro sexuality dominates in a very oppressive manner.
This could for some sensitive few understandably spoil whatever the film otherwise has going for it, as he's worse than his usual self in this one.
He rapes one woman who instantly falls in love with him, but ends up killing her anyway because she's so bad. He tries to rape another woman but stops, partly because she's a secret Christian & he's weirdly ambivalent about Christians, but he also withdraws from the rape attempt because he knows it will insult her if he shows no interest.
So this is one of the most misogynist episodes of a consciously misogynist series. For the majority who've come to these films, however, pushing the edges of what Kyoshiro Nemuri is all about increases rather than diminishes his fascination.
  This is the fifth episode of twelve starring Raizo Ichikawa, in which Kyoshiro helps a woman avenge her husband's slayer.
He's does not do so from chivalrous instinct. Rather, he agrees to step in only after she offers him "anything" to assist her. He has thus earned her for one night.
Nui Higaki (Tamao Nakamura) was willing to pay for Kyoshiro's help with her body. But her enemy's last words puzzled Kyoshiro. "If you help her, you'll have disgraced yourself."
Since hers was a clan-sanctioned revenge, Kyoshiro can only wonder what the dying man's words meant.
Nui turns out indeed to be a dispicable woman who wants to fulfill both her greed with stolen treasures, & her lust for Kyoshiro.
Just lustfulness might be acceptable. Just greed might be acceptable. But "Money & passion," says Kyoshiro. "That's being too greedy." He resents having assisted her in kililng someone better than herself.
 A retired pirate by the name of Denkichi was arrested & crucified after Kyoshiro refused to help him.
It was not honestly for his crime that he was killed, but because the Todo clan is trying to cover up their association with merchant Naruyima, who hired the smugglers.
Another of the ex-pirates had become an onnagata (player of female roles) of no threat to anyone.
But merchants & the chief retainer Atobe of the Todo clan want no witnesses to their own crimes, so assassinate even this harmless individual. Kyoshiro is by now sufficiently annoyed with these injustices that he begins to interfer in the manner of a chivalrous fellow.
The maiden Kayo (Michiko Sugata) doesn't know she's the daughter of one of the pirates. She's a sweet girl, but apt to be killed with the rest of her family, so Kyoshiro begins to protect her.
 [SPOILER ALERT!] When he figures out the chief villains are the beautiful Nui & the duplicitous Chief Atobe, he goes after them at a temple, matching his sword against numerous retainers. The temple setting adds to the beauty of the choreography.
"The Full Moon cut is over rated!" says Atobe the master swordsman. Kyoshiro says of his opponent's Fire Extinguishing form, "Once again, a perfected technique shall be vanquished!" and "The moonlight that kisses my face shall be your last vision of the present world."
So saying, Kyoshiro readies his elegant Full Moon posture. Afterward, the action returns to the one-against-all scenario.
Femme fatale Nui survived everything, but she made the signal mistake of falling for Kyoshiro. She waited on the road out of town, with every likelihood of turning over a new leaf for the sake of her misguided love.
But once Kyoshiro has decided a woman is demonic, he has no forgiveness in him. He answers her call to him with one sweep of his sword. This is the second film in which he cuts down an unarmed woman. [END SPOILER ALERT]
copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl
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