Some good Samurai feeding for you weebos and buffs.
The Execution of Minister Oneida
I saw this as a young boy at home, I believe with my father.
The opening scene is a black and white recording of a busy, small Japanese city bazaar looking to be some point in the 1900s. The camera pans out then zooms in on the crown. The day seems to be going well, then everyone startles and there is the ruffling sound of people being shoved and thrown to the ground by heavy persons. The people go to their knees and the camera is placed face downward on the ground. A moment later the camera is picked up and two young men are smiling brightly. A man with corroded teeth, brown on the gums, sitting in a palaquin is pointing at the camera. Again footage skips and you see many pretty young women in light colored kimonos and 3 in dark kimonos gather. There is much bumping of the camera being passed around and then as the camera holder shifts his shoulder. The footage is very clear and precise, but not handled well. Later the light-colored cloth wearing women and a few men are smiling, standing with each other while trading happens and the palaquin cuts through the group and the man with teeth like rot peeks out, grinning like a king. End Scene.
A burst of activity on the camera opens the next scene, footage of the sky, with two men sprinting through the outskirts of a village, they are skipping through yards with stone walls along a rocky man made path the width of a cart, and a dark variety of pines line the pathway heading over a rise. The camera is quite jumpy and cuts to black as the camera orients down and the men run. -
-The scene cuts to a color reel, with the pines leading along a slight ridgeback of a pennisula, extending rightward from the camera point of view, out across a small bay; showing a small Keep of Japanese look with a multileveled house within the stone walls -
The Black and White footage returns and the camera is being held; there is one of the men in view, looking down along the left side of a hedge, walking brashly, while the camera is held filming only the hedge and the walking man. They jerk to a stop and go still, a moment later the camera is shoved through a tangle of vines and shows a party:
A group of attendants and several guardsman standing around, while 6 guards watch warily and a troupe of lusty women stand chatting. A Girl of about 16, skinny, and a adolescent boy are near the palaquin, which was stopped at the side of the road for a moment. The party goes down the path a short way where there is a hedge on the right of the road in parallel.
At a break in the hedge, down the path a hundred yards, two arrows flash into the palaquin from right and away long, both emerging from the left window of the palaquin a moment late. A woman slinks up to the palaquin and gets hit by an arrow, and two more go into the palaquin and stay. The sound was very low and hollow, much like it was in a box. A moment of breath and then arrows from a 2nd and third direction take members of the crowd. The thunks are hard and not wood. The sound on the film then cut out. You see screaming and much squimishness around the bodies. The adolescent boy reacts to two impacts, and then stands as if dumb and rigid in place while quivering. Six Samurai break through the shrubs, then walk slowly toward the guards, whilst a well made young samurai struts up and enters conversation with the lead guard. A 2nd samurai who was with the speaker backs a 2nd fore guard with cocked head and hand movements forward and down the path, then mimics taking something out. The guard jerks into the hedge, where the footage on my television cut out again for a second. Picture returns and the 2nd samurai is walking back towards the speaker and a headless body is sliding down the bush front, with a movement from above it in the vines. Samurai number 2 steps forwards and into kill range of the lead guard. The guard pulls his sword out and the speaking samurai is cut, then in a simultaneous leap for each of 5 samurai; including the speaker; 8 guards were struck heavy and hard with katanas, disabling them and throwing several to the ground. The movements of the men were exact and free, and in the film at each contact of a blade the film had been cut. So there was a burst of video with pulses of black screen, then streaming of video, and then another quick burst of cut footage. The scene calms with a sudden clearing of the partakers, 3 women are down during the strike.
An older samurai, who watched from between the camera and the party walks towards the 2 cameramen who are hunched over and the camera points halfway towards the samurai. All women in view of the camera, as the older samurai walks closer and attention is brought to him raising his hand and speaking, are kneeled down with commands or quick, sharp strikes, and beheaded. The old samurai talks to the two men and the camera is crooked, and the samurai walks away with no sword.
There was a cut in the footage and you see the old samurai laying the adolescent Oneida boy on the ground, then opens him from hip to head with an up-down motion into the profile of the boys silhouette on the ground.. The footage starts looking dim and the sun is going down. The old samurai is left alone with the bodies, and the two camera men lay the camera on the gray cobblestones. As they creep towards the crouching samurai, the camera is knocked over on its side and a few rocks go bouncing by the screen. The cameramen, in what looks to be light blue on gray bound forward with the single blade out, slightly akimbo and out of view. You see the old samurai leap from kneeling into view with a hand strike to the left, there is a blur of motion and the samurai is facing the camera and has his hands on the hilt, taking it in a snapping motion, beheads one of the cameramen and takes the arm of the second, completing the snap with the blade placed in its hilt and slid by his side, the sun sets and you can make out only the dark of the hedges against the backdrop of the sky, with the cobblestones fading. . .
You see socks in the darkness stepping toward the camera.
I believe it was shown on the history channel, while I watched old WWII history shows as a boy. The film cut out completely twice during the showing. About halfway through, black screen beamed up with an annoying ring, which played for a minute or two. It stopped and there was no footage, so we waited, and then the show picked up again from a point only several moments after the censor. It again black screened with the ring, but the signal reset like turning off an old tube T.V. and the video kept playing.
