Sansho the Bailiff

山椒大夫 | Sanshō Dayū

Japan, 1954

Drama

Synopsis

When an idealistic governor disobeys the reigning feudal lord, he is cast into exile, and his wife and children are left to fend for themselves, and as they try to join him, they are separated and grow up amid suffering and oppression.

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Sansho the Bailiff Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi

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Awards & Festivals

Venice Film Festival

1954 | Winner: Silver Lion

Taipei Film Festival

2018

Viennale

2017

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Cast & Crew

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Critics reviews

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RogerEbert.com

The story is an eventful one full of cruelty and heartache. The film is also stylistically extraordinary. In his 1939 “The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum,” Mizoguchi showed his mastery of the moving camera, using long takes heavily influenced by Japanese scroll painting. In this movie the camera still moves, but with more nuance and subtlety. It’s as if he’s distilled the extreme sophistication of his narrative style down to its most simple components. The results are devastating throughout.

Glenn Kenny

September 05, 2017

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Criterion

The underlying response of the movie to these complicated ideological impulsions may be interpreted both politically and religiously. Seen from a political point of view, the film seems to expound the purest liberalism. Against tyranny it sets law; against captivity, freedom.

Mark Le Fanu

February 27, 2013

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The Village Voice

A masterpiece managed with exquisite patience, the film is slow-moving only in the sense that it doesn’t have to move for anybody; Mizoguchi’s hands and eyes search out every crevice along the eternal landscape, granting his characters clemency, or breaking their legs, based on the roll of an infinite-sided die.

Jaime N. Christley

May 05, 2018

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What are people saying?

EdieEmm's rating of the film Sansho the Bailiff
EdieEmm

The sublime, in cinema - that elusive state of rapture, of ego-dissolution, wherein I become no more than an emotional/physical/chemical projector for the film to watch itself through; its realization. The only thing keeping this one from taking me completely was my brain blurting,"Gah! It's perfect" every few minutes (maybe my mind's defence against it?) That, and the heavy truth of our undiminished brutality...
June 30, 2018 14:59
- 4
- 1
Ghostman's rating of the film Sansho the Bailiff
Ghostman

Effortless, rebellious, and elegiac, Sansho the Bailiff is one of the greatest films ever made and Mizoguchi is clearly one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived. Here is a film that is affecting beyond words.
September 29, 2017 18:32
- 5
- 2
Harry Rossi's rating of the film Sansho the Bailiff
Harry Rossi

One of the most emotionally painful films I've seen in recent memory. Astonishing. An absolutely beautiful story of how ideals can transcend the worst misery. I feel silly for having waited so late to watch any Mizoguchi, seeing that this is my first. The mastery of the images and the acting told me very strongly just how tightly in control Mizoguchi was of his craft. One of the best Japanese films I've ever seen.
July 25, 2013 06:49
- 16
- 1
Matthew Martens's rating of the film Sansho the Bailiff
Matthew Martens

Exquisite torture. Is that too precious? Maybe, but the film isn't. A towering work of great beauty, power, and pathos, Sansho is also, in the great Japanese tradition, built on the close reading and rigorous observation of difficult -- not to say hopeless -- social realities. Fearsome and very fine.
July 05, 2012 11:27
- 5
- 0
Graveyard Poet's rating of the film Sansho the Bailiff
Graveyard Poet

Mizoguchi's 1954 masterwork is a tragic and timeless tale about the pain and suffering human beings inflict upon one another, the exploitation of the lower classes for cheap labor, and the struggle for mercy, justice, and compassion. One of the most poignant and philosophical endings in film history. Moved me to tears.
January 12, 2019 15:30
- 11
- 0
Slowart's rating of the film Sansho the Bailiff
Slowart

absolutely ruthless story about humanism (mizoguchi is notoriously ruthless towards women) the best part of it for me is music and very graphic compositions with thorny trees and bushes, which clearly signify looming danger, which is almost everywhere
December 19, 2010 12:47
- 2
- 0
Ethan's rating of the film Sansho the Bailiff
Ethan

This is a heartbreakingly beautiful epic and the emotion and power of this film practically seethes off the screen.
June 24, 2017 14:40
- 1
- 0
Lynch/Fellini's rating of the film Sansho the Bailiff
Lynch/Fellini

Might just be one of the best films I have ever seen. Tragic, up close, and personal. Kenji Mizoguchi was a genius!
January 12, 2019 15:30
- 6
- 0