Kinnosuke Nakamura - Tumblr Posts

The Secret of the Urn (1966)

Three years after he last appeared on the big screen, the one-eyed, one-armed Tange Sazen returns in yet another retelling of The Million Ryo Pot (1935).

This time Sazen is portrayed by actor Kinnosuke Nakamura.  Nakamura-san is perhaps most famous in Japan for his portrayal of real-life samurai legend Miyamoto Musashi in a series of 5 films.  Those films are more popular in Japan  than the better known in the West Samurai Trilogy, starring Toshiro Mifune as Musashi.

Nakamura-san plays a Sazen far different than any version seen before or since.  Gone is the family friendly, smart-alecky curmudgeon that audiences had enjoyed through various incarnations since 1935.  Instead, this Sazen is manic, harsh, and extremely dark.

This film did to Tange Sazen what Man of Steel (2013) did to Superman: sucked all the fun out, and made him dark, edgy, and depressing.

Japanese audiences weren’t having it, and proposed sequels were abandoned.  In fact, for the first time in decades, it would be several years before Tange Sazen returned to the big screen.