Introduction

In recent years, Shinsuke Sato has established himself as one of the better Japanese action directors. Time after time, he delivers action-driven experiences (e.g. Inuyashiki (2018), I am Hero (2016), … etc.) that visually impress the spectator. His adaptations of Yasuhisa Hara’s Kingdom – i.e. Kingdom (2019) and Kingdom 2: Far and Away (2022) – were no different, bringing the epic proportions of China’s warring states period satisfyingly to life. Can Kingdom III: flame of destiny continue Sato’s streak of delivering engaging live-action adaptations?     

Review

After searching for many months, king Eisei (Ryo Yoshizawa) learns that Shin (Kento Yamazaki) has been found. For the last half year, he has, on Ohki’s order, ventured into a stateless and lawless zone full of tribal conflict to restore order.

Of course, Shin succeeds and is hereby allows to train under Ohki. Yet, at the same moment, near the border of Qin, an unforeseen threat appears. Zhao’s forces, led by an unknown general, have crossed the border, near the northeastern town Kansui. This sudden attack can only be driven by one desire: to erase the bloody injury of the Chohei massacre.

While an emergency call to form an army is swiftly send out – rounding up many peasants, the decision of who will lead the Qin army as commander-in-chief against the well-trained Zhao forces is less easy to take. Ultimately, Shoheikun (Hiroshi Tamaki) overturns the proposal to make Mobu (Yusuke Hirayama) commander-in-chief and forcefully introduces Ohki (Takao Osawa), whom has been training Shin.

It will not surprise anyone that Kingdom III delivers little more than a build-up to a much bigger confrontation that awaits our heroes in the following chapter of the series. As a result, Tsutomu Kuroiwa, the screenwriter, structures his narrative merely around two revelations – an emotional in the first half and a formative one in the second half of the film.  

The emotional revelation reveals to the spectator why King Eisei of the Qin desires to end never-ending warring states by uniting all the states into one. This sequence visualises his past subjective conflict, as inflicted by traumatic experiences, by letting his preconscious and unconscious materialize into a darkish persecutory doppelgänger, but also traces out the relational dynamic that allowed his transformation – the signifiers and the (sacrificial) acts that allowed him to overcome his inhibitions and heal the fracture of his subject. 

The second revelation within the narrative also concerns the past and provides an answer to the reason why Ohki so willingly accepts to face the Zhao forces, who are led by a mysterious commander, as the commander of the Qin forces. Yet, this revelation uncovers a rather depressive dynamic behind the art of war. Kingdom III ends up underlining that waging war, artfully playing chess with hordes of innocent and often untrained people, is ultimately motivated by imaginary injuries inflicted on one’s ego. The deathly real of war is, as Kingdom III reveals, stirred by a dimension that is as deeply deceptive as destructive: the imaginary.

Yet, while such message lingers within the narrative, Sato has no intention to exploit it and critique the machinery of war. This is, after all, a Shonen narrative that aims to deliver a visual spectacle, a bombastic feast of imagery to impress the spectator with the heroic exploits on the battlefield. And, in that respect, Shinsuke Sato does not disappoint. He succeeds in dashing out visually impressive action-sequences and offers an epic heroic prelude to the next instalment, where all the odds are stacked even higher against Shin and his comrades.  

The composition of Kingdom 3, just like the two previous narratives, is full of dynamism. The dynamism, in fact, functions as a visual thread that sews the whole composition together and gives it a flow that invites and engages the spectator. It does not only serve a variety of moods e.g. it enhances the sense of tension atmosphere, strengthens the impact of the action moves and the clashing of swords, adds a subtle flair of drama in moments of exposition – but makes rapid shifts in the visual pace and thus the flow of moods less abrupt.

The epic dramatic music and moving emotional accompaniment further smoothen the compositional flow, adds some dramatic highlights in the visual unfolding of the narrative,  and heightens the visual impact of epic imagery. In other words, what keeps the spectator engaged is not so much the performances of the cast – Takao Osawa is, however, deliciously dramatic, but the bombastic music which invites the spectator into the story and the epic imagery that aims to keep him glued to the screen.  

While in Kingdom 2 Kento Yamazaki brought his character too faithfully to life – embodying the Shonen dynamic too well, the childish dynamic of desire is less pronounced in the dramatic and epic continuation of the warring states in China. By lessening this annoying friction between his childish caricatural playfulness and the political seriousness, Shin finally fits better within the body of more serious characters and the dramatic unfolding of the narrative. So, while Kingdom 2 was at its best when Yamazaki’s Shin was absent or too busy fighting to speak, the more mature and dramatic Shin of Kingdom III ensures that Sato’s latest entry is more satisfying watch.

Kingdom III is a straightforward action-epic that delivers everything fans of the manga and the anime desire: some intrigue, some subjective secrets, and lots of heroic action. Yet, at the same time, Kato’s narrative does not tell a self-contained story, but merely introduces, as an epic appetizer, one unfinished narrative thread to will only be unfolded in the next instalment.