"The sword reflects the soul, & an evil sword style corrupts the soul."
B1x3 86x40" (218x103cm), This poster is the largest format that Japanese posters come in! We are very honored to be able to have this amazing, huge poster for Hiken.
"Japanese premiere billboards — made from three overlapping B1s — are some of the rarest posters in Japan. Nearly all were displayed and discarded as they took up so much space and were not desirable to space-conscious Japanese collectors. For a country that prioritized collecting 7×10″ chirashi, this 7′ wide billboard was simply not feasible to display in most Japanese homes. Flash forward to today and any country-of-origin paper from this important film is extremely scarce. This billboard is surely among the most important posters remaining and I have never encountered another copy anywhere." (Source: MP)
Directed by Hiroshi Inagaki (稲垣 浩), who is very famous for his Samurai Trilogy, which chronicled the life of Miyamoto Musashi in a fantastic fashion. Inagaki brough Musashi back in brilliant fashion in Hiken in 1963.
There were strict restrictions after World War 2 on the type of "action" films that Japanese Directors could make (e.g. no modern war films), therefore many director`s chose to make Samurai films that are seen as some of the best films ever made.
"Hiroshi Inagaki is best known in the west for his Toshiro Mifune vehicle Samurai Trilogy. But one of his most artful films is practically unknown, Hiken or The Secret Sword (Young Samurai), which has long had a rarely shown 35 mm subtitled print available with the title Young Swordsman. It has been issued as an unsubtitled DVD, & we can only hope that a subtitled version is made available by one of the few enterprising distributors of Japanese classics in America, as it has long been my favorite Inagaki film.
A black & white film with the elegance of an Akira Kurosawa classic, Young Swordsman stars Shogoro Ichikawa as Tenzen the young swordsman possessed by his own evil sword style, & Hiroyuki Nagato is Chojuro the opponent who must learn to defeat evil. This theme is echoed in the classic Sword of Doom (1966) starring Tatsuya Nakadai as the swordsman who develops a deceptive sword style, & becomes himself deceitful, on the premise that the sword reflects the soul, & an evil sword style corrupts the soul." (Source: WWR)
Certificate of Authenticity Included