
Ken
Country: Japan | ||
IMDB: 7.3 | Views: 17 | |
Subs: English, Japanese and Russian |
Kokubu, the austere captain of a university kendo team, lives with an almost spiritual devotion to the sword, pushing his students through relentless training as the national championships draw near. His rigid detachment clashes with Kagawa, a gifted but arrogant newcomer whose ambition and pride challenge Kokubu’s authority. Their escalating rivalry exposes not only a battle for control within the dojo but also the deeper sacrifices demanded by discipline, pride, and the pursuit of mastery.
The film is based on Yukio Mishima’s novella Ken (“The Sword”), one of his most celebrated explorations of discipline, beauty, and death. Mishima himself was deeply connected to the philosophy of kendo, making the story resonate as a reflection of his own ideals.
Unlike many samurai films of the period, Ken is set in a modern university environment, which allows Mishima’s themes of traditional values clashing with contemporary ambition to come forward in a unique way.
While not as widely known outside Japan as Misumi’s other works, Ken has gained recognition among film scholars as an early example of Mishima’s literature being adapted for the screen, foreshadowing the later collaboration Patriotism (1966), which Mishima directed and starred in himself.
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