The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail

The fourth film from Akira Kurosawa is based on a legendary twelfth-century incident in which the lord Yoshitsune and a group of samurai retainers dressed as monks in order to pass through a dangerous enemy checkpoint. The story was dramatized for centuries in Noh and Kabuki Theater, and here it becomes one of the director’s most riveting early films.

Starring Denjiro Ookouchi, Tadayoshi Nishina, Susumu Fujita