Completing Yôji Yamada‘s ‘Samurai‘ trilogy, Love And Honour stars Takuya Kimura as a low-ranking samurai who suffers permanent blindness and then depression after tasting badly prepared food for his master

In an era when Asian cinema has produced death-defying martial arts movies like Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, there is something very satisfying about the work of veteran Japanese director Yôji Yamada. Following The Twilight Samurai (2002) and The Hidden Blade (2004) comes the final part of his loose ‘Samurai‘ trilogy, Love And Honour. As the title suggests, like its predecessors, it prefers to concentrate on emotions rather than action - though is no less powerful for it.

The film centres on Shinnojo Mimura (Japanese film and pop star Takuya Kimura), a rank-and-file samurai who is one of several entrusted with tasting the food being delivered to the Shogun. One day, he eats an ill-prepared shellfish dish which causes him to fall into a fever. Though he survives, he is left permanently sightless. Unsurprisingly, he falls into a deep depression ("I‘m better off dead," he wails) - not helped by the fact that he has no idea how he will survive without his vision. "It‘s not like he can become a masseur or a ballad singer," speculates one peer.

With the Shogun slow to decide whether to help Shinnojo, it is left to his beautiful wife Kayo (Rei Dan) to seek help from the head town clerk Toya Shimada (Mitsugoro Bando), an admirer from the past, who claims to have influence over the master. Yet Shinnojo becomes suspicious of this and sends his servant Tokuhei (Takashi Sasano) to follow her, who discovers she is being exploited by the town clerk with a promise of help that never surfaces. An act Tokuhei calls "tantamount to rape", in Shinnojo‘s mind it blemishes his honour and he banishes his wife. What follows is the inevitable showdown between Shinnojo and the town clerk, who notes his opponent "is very brave for a blind man". Evidently recalling the character of Zatoichi, the blind swordsman played by Takeshi Kitano in his own 2003 film, the final duel may not be spectacular but there is more feeling in one swish of Shinnojo‘s blade than in all the high-falluting moves of Hero. With a soundtrack that has truly ominous moments, Yamada builds up his tension in a casual way - yet you are left to feel that rage may boil over at any second.

Smartly, Yamada peppers the film with moments of humour - such as Shinnojo‘s dislike of his servant‘s terrible cooking. There‘s also a delightfully telling scene where a newly-blind Shinnojo bows in front of the master who glides past without looking, just murmuring "Well done". Demonstrating the thankless nature of the samurai‘s existence (as Shinnojo later says, "life lies in resolve of death"), it‘s scenes like these that show a director in total command of his story and his characters.