Ugetsu

 It's always surprised me how little so many classic samurai movies romanticize their roaming warriors. I probably shouldn't be, given that most of them were made while world war two was in living memory. Ugetsu was made less than a decade after the war ended, and its depiction of the samurai is possibly the most unremittingly vicious.

 The script, by Matsutarō Kawaguchi and Yoshikata Yoda, takes inspiration from an 18th century book of ghost stories (some them influenced by the same traditional stories which would go on to influence Kwaidan a decade later). But it's almost forty minutes before anything even remotely supernatural happens.

 Not that you'd notice, because director Kenji Mizoguchi makes the war-torn 16th century Japanese countryside into an uncanny, limbo-like expanse, and the roaming bands of wild-eyed samurai into chaotic, ravenous demons.
 In the eye of the storm lies a small village, where Genjurô (Masayuki Mori) and Tôbei (Eitarô Ozawa), two potters, see an opportunity to profit by selling their wares to noblemen while supply is at an understandable low. Their greed gets the better of them, and after an initial venture they decide to head to a nearby city with their families. The trip, even the preparations for it, are harrowing, since their village is soon invaded by rampaging soldiers. 

 The journey is tense and masterfully presented, with a jaw-dropping centerpiece: a gorgeously shot lake-crossing that's unnervingly otherworldly.

 At the gates of the city, a concerned Genjurô sends his wife Miyagi (Kinuyo Tanaka) and his infant son back to the village; he soon lets himself be seduced by a local noblewoman (Machiko Kyō, who might be the first instance of a pottery groupie I've ever seen); Tôbei, meanwhile misplaces his wife Ohama (Mitsuko Mito) while assholishly pursuing his dream of getting some armour and becoming a samurai himself.

 So this is the part where the men let their greed ruin their lives, as foretold early on by a a village sage. Tôbei lucks out in battle, and his dishonourable means gain him great favour from a warlord - only to find that his fortunes came at the metaphysical expense of his wife's. As for Genjurô, he finds that his would-be paramour lives in a derelict mansion with her handmaiden and is clearly, let's say, vitally-challenged. That doesn't stop him from... kind of tacitly accepting a marriage proposal.

 There are a couple of elements in his story shared with a couple of Kwaidan's tales, possibly due to the common sources of inspiration; That impression becomes more pronounced once Genjurô finally makes his way back home for one final supernatural twist. Tôbei's story is simpler, and his fate harder to relate with since he's such a buffoonish idiot. Poor Ohama.

 I actually preferred the journey to the destination and the harrowing war survival story to the ghostly escapades, which is rare for me. Maybe that wouldn't be the case if I had seen this before Kwaidan (which came out more than a decade later), but I'd like to think it's more of a testament to how well those early war scenes are handled. It's a lovely, unique movie that despite some missteps (the final monologue is pretty enough, but works against the film's spell) has aged exceptionally well. And the lake scene really is an all-timer.