In short: Bored Hatamoto: The Cave of the Vampire Bats (1961)

Original title: Hatamoto taikutsu otoko: Nazo no nanairo goten

This is a late example of the “Bored Hatamoto” (sometimes also translated as “Idle Vassal”) series of fun jidai geki concerning the adventures of Hatamoto (which means a directed vassal of the Shogun who is only responsible to the Shogun himself but neither lords nor laws below him) Saotome Mondonosuke (Utaemon Ichikawa), a supposedly idle and bored guy who always stumbles into conspiracies and over mysteries, which he beats with his talent for making friends in all classes of a highly stratified society, his – of course – indomitable swordplay, and rather a lot of pulpy detective moves.

It’s generally a light and fun series that I assume was at the time made for an audience of all ages, and this entry, as directed by Yasushi Sasaki, is no exception. This is not one of those samurai films terribly interested in social or historical criticism, psychology, or extreme craziness (1961 would have been pretty early for that last one anyway), but is all about showing Mondonosuke outwitting and outfighting a group of evildoers trying to cheat someone into the shogun’s succession, even if they have to murder and besmirch the honour of innocent shrine maidens who know too much, or turn a perfectly harmless cave full of bats into something frightening to the peasantry. Too bad for them that Mondonosuke comes upon the first murder, as committed by a masked man in ninja style garb with an excellent tiny cape supposed to suggest bat wings, and starts poking his nose in all sorts of places.

And what a nice bit of fun the film is, with a couple of not spectacular yet highly enjoyable fight scenes, a mystery that’s rather easy to solve yet still entertaining to watch unravel, the high quality sets and locations you expect from this sort of Japanese film, and a cast (full of faces everyone who watches Japanese popular cinema of this time will know) that plays the broad characters with verve.

Sasaki’s a competent director too, perhaps a bit too fond of melodramatic zooms on Ichikawa’s face, but keeping things rolling along merrily and economically.


The film’s only actual weakness to my eyes is its overuse of the two songs on its soundtrack. Sure, there’s a degree of plot relevance to one of them, but we get to hear each one three or four times – rather a lot in a film of less than ninety minutes length.