One cannot create historical dramas without fictionalizing, withing using a fictionalizing needle to sow the factual threads together. The need for such needle of interpretation is the main reason why films about similar events and figures can offer such divergent perspectives. The fictionalizing act of writing also means that the screenwriter will have take some creative liberties and shortcuts to attain a certain level of narrative cohesion. Of course, the screenwriter can also utilize such liberty to create surprising spins by visualizing the unwritten and undocumented. The process of fictionalization can offer the spectator a what-if glance at what has and will, in all probability, remain unknown to man.    

Takeshi Kitano utilizing both kinds of creative liberties in his narrative. Yet, not surprisingly, the latter kind stands out – the role of Yasuke (Jun Soejima) is creatively played with and the ability of Hanzo Hattori (Kenta Kiritani) and his rival ninja is dramatized. Yet, despite these creative escapades, Kubi still offers the spectator a truthful unfolding of the events that led to the Honno-ji incident and the unification of Japan. Kitano’s film, moreover, delves into certain historical details that have hitherto not been touched upon or glossed over in similar historical drama films.

Osaka, autumn, 1579. The rebellion of retainer Araki Murashige (Kenichi Endo) against Oda Nobunaga (Ryo Kase) and his campaign to unify the country has already lasted one year and three months. Sadly, his call to other clan leaders opposed to Nobunaga, like Mori (Kanichiro), to lend him their support remains unanswered. The castle falls in the following battle, yet Murashige disappears.

In the following meeting between Oda Nobunaga and his retainers, Hashiba Hideyoshi (Takeshi Kitano), Akechi Mitsuhide (Hidetoshi Nishijima), and Takigawa Kazumasu (-) silently witness Nobunaga’s fury over the failure to capture the traitor. In his fury, he seemingly disowns his own sons Nobutada (-) and Nobutaka (-) and promises to appoint the retainer who proves his loyalty the most as his successor.   

Hashiba Hideyoshi, encamped near Tottori castle, is using starvation tactics to squash Mori’s rebellion led by Muneharu Shimizu (YosiYosi Arakawa) and Ekei Ankokuji (Naomasa Musaka). One day, while touring the nearby market, Hideyoshi, his younger brother Hidenaga (Nao Omori) and Kuroda Kanbei (Tadanobu Asano) encounter Shinzaemon Sorori (Yuichi Kimura), a Koga ninja turned performer currently employed by Sen No Rikyu (Ittoku Kishibe). While Hidenaga urges Hideyoshi to let him work for the clan, Kanbei proposes to only retain him after he proves his value by completing a near impossible mission. 

To be able to enjoy Kubi to the fullest, it is important for the spectator to know what to expect. Kitano’s narrative, while bloody and features many moments of action, is not a narrative where battles quickly culminate. Rather, Kitano visualizes a game of political intrigue peppered with sardonic puns, a sprawling web of deceptions and ploys aimed at turning retainers against each other, getting Nobunaga eliminated, and secure the chance to be anointed his successor.  

 

While Kitano’s Kubi can be enjoyed without any prior knowledge of the depicted historical events, spectators who lack such knowledge will feel lost at certain moments in the narrative and not unable to enjoy Kitano’s film to the fullest. The main narrative thread can become quite confusing as many historical figures and figurants are introduced and certain relational situations remain unexplained. On the other hand, for such spectators, Kitano’s film can also function as an invitation to delve deeper in this highly interesting historical period.   

If we look at the thematical dimension of Kubi, we can argue that that Kitano narrativizes and visualizes the destructive encounter between the lingering homo-eroticism, the hysterical demand for loyalty and love, and the criminal assumption of the symbolic law and the mistaken belief of having the imaginary phallus. 

The homo-erotism, which veins the hierarchical field of bushido is not only evident in the sexual relationship between Araki Murashige and Akechi Mitsuhide and the strange homosexual tension that structures Nobunaga’s interaction with Murashige, but also in Nobunaga’s violent demand to be desired by his retainers and to be the desired phallic object (Narra-note 1). It is not difficult to perceive that Nobunaga’s oral punishment of Murashige is sadistic as well as sexual. Nobunaga does not merely gain enjoyment by reducing his retainers to mere sexual objects, but by forcing them to prove their ‘pure’ loyalty via such reduction (Psycho-note 1). This sadistic act is, moreover, an important tool in Nobunaga’s arsenal to feel desired as the ‘unifying’ phallus.

Kitano also touches upon the fact that, within this feudal societal system, many poor peasants, like Mosuke (-) and Tamezo (Kanji Tsuda), are enamoured by the samurai clad in their beautiful armours and, thus, desire to escape their miserable existence as farmers by acquiring the title of samurai. The bloody truth that dirties these shining armours – the real of death that lurks around every corner – does not complicates the poetic fantasy they aspire to realize. In fact, one can even argue that these peasants prefer the swift death of the warrior over the continuous and cyclic suffering of the farmer struggling on his land.   

It is quite refreshing that Kitano directly visualizes the brutality (e.g. beheadings, punishments, …) that defined the violent clashes that defined the Sengoku period and characterized Nobunaga’s brutal way to instil fear and force loyalty among his retainers. Yet, Kitano does not merely refuse to romanticize this time-period, but also ensures that the violence does not merely become exploitative. Kitano does not compositionally indulge in the violence to shock and thrill the spectator, but fluidly interweaves the excesses of violence into the narrative to evoke the mundane quality of such violence in the Sengoku period. It is the dry everydayness of the beheadings that shocks, rather than their visualization.  

Kitano’s composition stands out due to its floaty and measured dynamism and its unrushed visual rhythm (Cine-note 1). Kitano’s choice to utilize the cut in a thoughtful way and give Kubi such rhythm gives the spectator the chance to visually examine the historical setting and fully appreciate the interiors, exteriors (e.g. Azuchi Castle), costumes, and the visual contrast between the different classes of this medieval society. In some cases, Kitano exploits the geometrical dimension to visualize the bloody and deadly Real of the Sengoku period with a touch of visual poetry.

In fact, Kitano utilizes the camera to create an emotional distance between the spectator and the action that unfolds on the screen. While he does not aim to create a visual document, Kitano does aim to put the spectator into the position of impartial observer of the concatenation of events and examinator of the cultural peculiarities of the historical setting.     

Ryo Kase’s performance as Oda Nobunaga is simply wonderful. He does not only give Nobunaga’s violent outbursts their emotional impact, but brings the tyranny of his signifiers convincingly to life. Through his performance, the spectator can easily understand that Nobunaga’s violent nature and his thirst for enjoyment are function of his phantasmatic assumption of the law and phallus and his desire to take the position where his joyous capricious law embraces all of Japan by force. Yet, his signifiers are not simply the law for his retainers, but a veritable prison that subjects them to his caprices and sadistic excesses.

The retainer has but three ways to deal with his imprisonment within this system. Either one tries to destroy the tyrannical structure through rebellion like Araki Murashige (the path of frustration), subjects oneself completely to the tyrant’s signifier (the path of fearful alienation), thus repressing one’s own desire, or one engages with the tyrant in such a way that one can utilize his signifiers and act to try and realize one’s own hidden desire and ambition (the path of ambition). Ryo Kase’s incredible performance allows Kitano to illustrate the tragedy of deceiving oneself with the impossible assumption of law and phallus convincingly and breathe an engaging sense of realism in the chess-like game of power that festers behind the ‘phallic’ scene of brutality.    

With Kubi, Takeshi Kitano proves that one can still craft something refreshing within the genre of the jidai-geki. He mixes excesses of bloody violence, surges of romance, nifty scheming and cynical puns into a whole that does not merely keep the spectator engaged from start to finish, but succeeds in scratching his various genre-itches satisfactorily. Whether Kitano’s addition to the genre will be considered a classic or not in the future cannot be predicted, yet one can, without hesitation, state that it is one of best period dramas in recent years.

       

Notes

Narra-note 1: This phantasmatic assumption explains why Nobunaga does the fucking and the biting. Within his fantasy, only he can grant Mori Ranmaru the phallus and force the Other, like Yasuke, to suffer for their failure to ‘masturbate’ Nobunaga satisfactorily.    

Psycho-note 1: Yet, one could argue that what heightens Nobunaga’s enjoyment is the initial hesitation aiming those he subjects to his sadistic and sexual signifier.  

Cine-note 1: The use of wipe-cuts in the opening moments of the narrative feel somewhat out of place in the otherwise well-crafted composition.