The common people were not as subservient to Japan's feudal system as often supposed. Rebellion was endemic throughout Japanese history, even in the "peaceful" Tokugawa era. Whenever peasants were pushed too far, there were peasant uprisings when the buke class samurai become too overbearing & discovered that farmers with orchard saws or winnowing flails could use their implements as weapons, or "rice riots" protesting hunger & taxation, & the general unruliness of commoners when tyranny overstepped itself.

Numerous individuals & groups undermined the status quo. Commoners formed groups of kyokaku ("heroic host" or "town knights") or ototodate ("daring fellows") obedient to bosses who were like fathers of a family. These gangs lived under a code of conduct called kikotsu, equivalent to the samurai's bushido code. This code encouraged rebellious outrage in the face of injustice.

Though Chuji of Kunisada Village in Joshu was a legendary outlaw hero, he was most certainly of an actual historic type. A rough outline of his legend has it that in 1846 he established a great gambling hall & became a powerful oyabun or gambling boss. He had one wish in life: "I want to die in a manner that all the people will mourn me." When government officials harrassed the commoners who looked up to him, he would intercede, nonviolently at first. Eventually he came to blows with the authorities & had to flee to a mountain retreat, from which location he remained a threat to tyranny.

His legend has been fleshed out into a rich biography in folk tales, folk songs, plays, motion pictures, television programs, comic books, anime, & video games. Chuji with his men on Mount Akagi are as familiar to every Japanese as Robin Hood & his men of Sherwood Forest are to English-speaking westerners.


Daisuke Ito's A Diary of Chuji's Travels (Chuji tabinikki I, II, 1927; III, Nikkatsu, 1928) features Denjiro Okochi as the legended gambler of the late Edo period. According to film historian Donald Richie, Chuji is portrayed in this silent epic as a veritable revolutionary at odds with an oppressive system.

The epic originally stretched to four hours, of which 94 minutes survive in a rough restoration, nearly the entirety of part II & half of part III, giving the whole of the story about the geisha Oshina (Naoe Fushimi) whom Chuji strives to save, followed by a story of Chuji's loss of reputation & final downfall.

Two stills from Ito's epic of Chuji Kunisada are shown near these paragraphs. Ito's period films in general promoted nearly socialist ideals, as he was noted for Keiko Eiga or "films leaning left." The idea of a hero like Chuji from outside the ruling military class lends himself to social commentary even in a film of action & entertainment.

Today the name kyokaku is used as a euphemism for the modern, criminal yakuza, gangsters who retain the same boss-gang relationships as the feudal yakuza, but not the ideals attributed to the likes of Chuji. Truth be told, the original kyokaku were not all that idealistic either, as there can be a considerable distance between a code & its implementation. But there are entirely historical examples of men exactly as noble as Chuji.

Many of the nobler attributes of kyokaku were expressed not in the Tokugawa era when such gangs flourished, but in the Meiji period at the turn of the 19th Century, when the equivalent of dime-novels (called matatabi-mono) were first widely circulated. These heroicized the kyokaku much as America's penny dreadfuls glamorized Billy the Kid or Jesse James.


The kyokaku & otokodate were also known as yakko, a word which implies servitude to the gang boss. It may also be the root word for "yakuza," but the entymology is clouded. A classic example of the Japanese pun, the individual syllables of the word "yakuza" correspond to certain numbers on a gambler's dice, but taken together mean literally "useless person," a typical self-deprecation.

In theory these "useless persons" were supposed to hide in the shadows, avoiding the law, & never pestering "honest" people. Gambling & even prostitution were illegal but they were services sought out by many people; if no one sought out yakuza for the sake of these services, then moral individuals should in accordance with the gangster code never be molested by yakuza.

In reality of course, yakuza could be as troublesome to honest people as were the overbearing samurai, & only a chivalrous yakuza would endorse & obey the gamblers' code, & enforce the code when the more typical gangsters behaved wrongly. In the first Zatoich film, Life & Opinions of Masseur Ichi (Zatoichi monogatari, 1963), Ichi chastises a group of his fellow yakuza about how wrong it has been of them to live in the sunlight & bother good people. Then he corrects the trouble by killing everyone he disapproves of.

Zatoichi's character was to great extent patterned after Chuji Kunisada, as Ichi follows the same code Chuji honors. In Zatoichi the Fugitive aka Zatoichi & the Chest of Gold (1964), Chuji & Ichi actually join forces, & Chuji's advice to Ichi is typical of his famous wit: "We may not live long. Let's shake the world while we can!"


Early in the Tokugawa period, the kyokaku organizations were useful in lessening the power of oppressive government. An otokadate boss named Chobei of Banzui became a noted power in the capital, Edo. He was a chonin or "townsman" & used his power to aid artisans & merchants inside the city. His type was thoroughly historical even if everything that is known about Chobei is legendary in nature, making him a standard figure for kabuki plays, most famously in Kawatake Mokuami's Kiwametsuki Banzui Chobei (1881).

From Chobei's more-or-less historical reality we can see the origins of Chuji. The sort of power Chobei wielded in favor of the people was a nuisance to the shogunate. Eventually these yakuza prototypes were expelled from Edo, after many terrible riots & encounters bertween samurai & otokodate.

Once expelled from Edo, these gangs set up de facto rule in post towns. They were never completely suppressed because they began to make concessions to the shogunate through easily corrupted local officials. To finance their activities they organized illegal gambling & lower-class brothels. Sometimes they were literally funded to get started in their criminal enterprises by the shogunate itself, which got kickbacks from the businesses. The government could thus hire laborers at sightly inflated wages with every expectation of getting a percentage of the payroll back when laborers squandered their earnings gambling & whoring.

This very likely marked the end of the kyokaku & otokodate as an element of rebellion, much as the mafia of Sicily has its root in peasant defense but over time became increasingly a criminal organization. The medieval yakuza were coopted as part of the system, & to this day yakuza organizations can be found with clearly marked offices, or looked up in the phone book, as they are regarded as a necessary evil keeping young men who might otherwise be thugs in check by their obedience to their oyabun/godfather.

This background helps in understanding why, in so many of the Zatoichi films, Ichi arrives in a village terrorized by gangsters who are immune to any official authority of the Tokugawa government, & demanding Ichi's vigilantism to restore a certain balance of fairness. This is also the world exposed by Chuji, who is against bad gangsters as much as he is against tyrannical government officials.

Inevitably these post town gangs instigated Tong Chinatown or Chicago-gangland type levies on merchants, purportedly to protect them from overbearing samurai but really to keep the gangs themselves from causing trouble. In cinematic treatments, town officials of the samurai class who had turned a blind eye to the goings-on in trade for their kickbacks are apt to be killed right alongside the gangsters. The legend becomes, thereby, not that the kikotsu code made the medieval yakuza worthy decent heroic types, but that once in a great while someone like Chuji or Zatoichi would take the kikotsu code extremely seriously, & their chivalrous personalities were awakened by others' refusal to honor any code but their own thirst for money or power.

So yakuza like the Tong of China or the Sicilian mafia originated in self-protection leagues that quickly began to misuse their power for self-perpetuation & monetary gain, losing their original intent to defend the defenseless. Yet always the original kikotsu system of ethical behavior lingered in the background as a chastisement against the unfortunate behavior of gangsters, providing an excuse for the chivalrous gambler to intercede on behalf of humane sentiment.

Hence the legends of superhero gambling warriors arose. The exploits of such gamblers became meat of popular literature & folktales & classical theater &, by the earliest days of cinema, movies. Shojiro Sawada's Chuji Kunisada (1919) was described by film essayist Sadao Sato as having "lively, realistic swordfights & a quasi-revolutionary hero," so right from the beginning of Chuji's cinematic presentation he had a left-leaning political edge.


Daisuke Ito's Chuji trilogy was followed by Inagaki's 1933 Chuji trilogy: Kunisada Chuji: Hareru Akagi no maki; Kunisada Chuji: Ruru ruten no maki; & Kunisada Chuji: Tabi no kyko no maki. These are apprently lost films, though Inagaki's silent film Wandering Gambler (Horo Zanmei, 1928) with a similar character is preserved by the Japan Film Library Council in Tokyo. A slim contemporary poster for Horo Zanmei is shown near this paragraph on the right.

The Wandering Gambler was Inagaki's first film. In its silent hour assisted by benshi narration, it tells a story set at the tail-end of the Tokugawa era. Mondo (Chiezo) sets out on the road of revenge after he finds his wife dead, having killed herself due to being blackmailed over a letter. Multiple storylines render the simple story more convoluted than necessary. Chiezo draws on his kabuki training, toned down for realism's sake, to come up with some of the most amazing physical stances & facial expressions during scenes rapid swordplay action.

A 1924 version of Chuji's adventures directed by Shozo Makino is preserved in the Kyoto Film Library; a still from this version of Kunisada Chuji is reproduced by this paragraph, showing Chuji seated on a roadside between two companions. Shozo Makino's son was a leading jidai-geki director of the following generation, & his Chuji film A Man's Pledge is reviewed in detail later in this essay.

Chuji films became a veritable sub-genre of the matatabi-mono or traveller tales category of jidai-geki (period swordplay films). A few seconds of a Chuji folkplay can be glimpsed in Kaneto Shindo's Life of Chikuzan the Shamisan Player aka Chikazu's Lone Journey (Chikuzan hitori tabi, 1977) starring Ryuzo Hayash as Chikuzan Takahashi, a modern-day blind wanderer who collected folksongs all around Japan & in his later years (in the 1960s & 1970s) became a recognized national treasure.

Kaneto Shindo, another left-leaning director, intentionally wished to draw a comparison between Chuji the chivalrous commoner of legend & this modern folksinger. The image reproduced here from the video box shows the central figure playing shakuhachi rather than shamisen, & shows him wearing the sedgehat of a matatabi or wanderer exactly as would've been worn by Chuji.


Chiezo Kataoka stars as Chuji in Shigehiro Ozawa's widescreen color film Kunisada Chuji: On National Authority (1958), co-starring Kotaro Satomi, Hiroko Sakuramachi & Ryunosuke Tsukigata. This film's DVD box illustrates the top of this page.

In the region of Kanto during the Tempo Era (1830-1843) there was an extensive drought resulting in massive loss of crops. The governors of some areas throughout the Kanto provinces gave extensions on land taxes which peasants paid with rice. Delaying taxes in drought years was the difference between survival & starvation. But the governor over 170 farm villages of Joshu was greedy & corrupt & eager to take advantage of the rising value of rice. Desparate farmers were selling their daughters or even committing suicide under threat of starvation & the burden of the rice tax.

In the dark of night, gambling boss Chuji arrives in the garden of the governor's mansion. When the governor investigates the sound, Chuji prostrates himself saying he will suffer any punishment for his trespass & audacity, but to please help the farmers by delaying the rice taxation.

The more Chuji grovels in his request for humane treatment of the people, the more the governor balks at any decency. At last Chuji stands. The pleading tone is gone from his voice as he says gruffly, "I don't like to kill. But to save people from their living hell..."

The governor is slain & the rice storage house opened to the people. Chuji becomes a regional hero, but one who is forced to flee to Mount Akagi.

Rather than a single large story, the structure of the film is more like a set of four vignettes strung together, a lingering feature of the original serial novel's "travel diary" format adapted in the silent era. In the second chapter, constable Kansuke acknowledges Chuji's intentions were noble, but nevertheless he must arrest Chuji for the murder. The constable's nephew, Asataro, is a young follower of Chuji. The magistrate respects the young man's allegiance, though it sadly puts them on opposite sides of the law.

As things unfold, young Asataro accidentally leads Chuji into his uncle's arms, & Chuji barely escapes. Chuji's henchmen afterward believe Asataro betrayed Chuji & demand he leave Mount Akagi.

The young man is so hurt & shamed that he sets out to assassinate his beloved uncle. When he realizes he cannot do such a thing, his uncle throws himself upon Asataro's sword & while dying says, "I know how bad you must have felt to be called a traitor. Take my head & show them." He makes Asataro promise to raise Kantaro, the constable's little boy, to be an honest man, & not a yakuza.

Chuji is heartsick to learn what has happened, & everyone is apologetic toward Asataro while weeping over the head of Kansuke. Because of this killing, a large number of samurai start up the mountain to hunt down Chuji's men, some of whom are killed, the rest scattered. Asataro, with his tiny nephew Kantaro on his back, goes down fighting at Chuji's side, & passes his uncle's last wish to Chuji, to see that the boy is raised to be an honest man.

Most of the bad guys & a couple good ones lay dead on the mountain by the end of this part of the episodic film. Chuji & little Kantaro start out along the road to Shinshi. Chuji realizes that if he keeps the boy with him while constantly on the run from the law, Kantaro will surely grow up to be a yakuza like Chuji, & another option is required if the boy is to grow up honest.

Along the road he reconnects with his old girlfriend Osen, now a restaurant owner of a small town. Suddenly we're in the midst of the third of this string of tales, learning something of Chuji's past when he almost became an honest married man.

The action-climax of this segment pits Chuji against three ruffians who defrauded Osen's restaurant. Chuji gives the men every opportunity to make right the ill deed they have done, but once again bad guys remain bad guys & make the sorry choice of attacking Chuji. Before Chuji draws his sword, he calls out to the boy clinging to his back, "Kantaro! Close your eyes!" then takes down the thugs violently. Afterward Kantaro finds an honest home when Osen promises to raise him as though he were her own son.

The fourth & last episode is the best played. Kieumon, a desperately poor old man who has incurred the impossible task of raising raise a hundred ryo, sells his grown daughter into a term of service as a maid in the house of a Shinshu constable. She afterward learns she is actually going to be forced into prostitution, as the constable is simultaneously a gangster whose house is a bordello. Plus the gangster-constable sent thugs to rob the old man of the hundred ryo. Chuji happens along just in time to keep Kieumon from hanging himself in the woods.

There follows an extensive, amusing, actorly piece wherein Chiezo as Chuji poses as a naive peasant representing "my only uncle" trying to convince the gang boss to give the old man another hundred ryo. The gangster-constable says he already took pity on the old man & paid him more than his daugther's service was worth, & certainly couldn't pay for her a second time. Chuji half-jestingly lets slip that he believes the boss had sent henchmen to rob the old man, so it's not a matter of paying twice.

This bad guy has no intention of doing the right thing, so Chuji reveals who he really is, no longer the naive but persistent peasant but a dangerous outlaw intent on justice. With false politeness it becomes clear that Chuji's ultimate goal is not only to get the old man his hundred ryo, but also to get back indenture contract for his daughter. It's simply a wonderful portrayal of Chuji at his best, using his wit & strength of personality rather than his sword to achieve just ends.

But as it's an action film, the non-violent conclusion isn't about to stand. After the right thing has been done & Chuji has gone along his way, the bordello owner's wife berates him until he calls together all his followers & decides to do his constable duty & go arrest or kill Chuji.

Waylaying Chuji along the road, the gangster-constable holds forth his jitte truncheon symbolic of law enforcement officers, & demands Chuji submit to arrest. Men surround him with their swords drawn. Chuji lets it be known he is not about to be arrested by such a crooked authority, so a final one-against-all duel is on the brink of erupting.

Before he draws his own sword, Chuji makes reference to an actual folk song, asking, "Have you heard this song before: 'Kunisada Chuji is scarier than a demon.'" He then engages the whole lot for a bloody finale.

For an upbeat family film, the swordplay is surprisingly brutal, with a brilliant soundtrack consisting exclusively of taiko drums (heard from a nearby festival) to accompany the slaughter. There's a persisting air of tragedy. In the end, as Chuji stands among the corpses he has riven, holding his sword before him to address it as life-saving friend & companion, this great "sword of Komatsu Goro Yoshikane" a famous swordsmith.

This film is simply great unpresuming fun, & conveys the basic Chuji legend in pleasing fullness. Chiezo Kataoka was getting long in the tooth by 1958 & is perhaps a bit old & flabby to be playing these sorts of action roles, but fact is, he's great & convincing even as an aging actor. He'd been a big jidai-geki star in the 1920s through 1940s, but during the Occupation he had no career at all, McArthur's occupation rule having banned jidai-geki as too militaristic for a conquered Japan.

When McArthur was gone, jidai-geki films returned with a passion, increasingly prone to challenging authority with characters like Chuji, & stars of a previous generation, like Chiezo Kataoka & Ryutaro Otomo, were brought back to recreate the sorts of roles they had already become famous for when they were younger actors. An awful lot of the pre-war films were destroyed either during bombings or intentionally during the Occupation, & the great roles these actors played might often have been lost to us, except that they recreated their performances in the 1950s & early '60s mainly for Toei Studios.

Continue to:
Medieval Yakuza Part II:
Chuji of Kunisada, Jirocho of Shimizu, Not to Mention Yojimbo

copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl