The Samurai and the Prisoner (2026)

Always feels a bit weird stumbling into a director’s extensive but new to me filmography with their newest movie instead of their most well-regarded, but Cure‘s still on the “too scary” list, but I didn’t even know this was a Kiyoshi Kurosawa film until it started. I just wanted to watch a movie and The Samurai and the Prisoner had the most interesting logline. It rips that I live somewhere where it’s possible to just wander into a movie.

I was delighted by The Samurai and the Prisoner. It is an exceptional crime procedural, witty and sharp and occasionally nasty — notes of Silence of the Lambs, Knives Out, and the good episodes of Columbo. The Samurai and the Prisoner‘s mystery isn’t a particularly difficult one to unravel, but that’s not where the pleasure of the genre lies, for me. It’s all about the details — obvious, intricate, and extraneous. Every frame is gorgeous, its seasonal framework allowing the camera to really love the castle it captures in gorgeously verdant greens and icy whites. It meanders, but in a pleasant way — who am I to begrudge the film its discursions into tea, especially when those discursions are interesting?

In the week since I’ve seen it, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about more about those exterior shots than I have about the plot or the acting, which suggests that the film is going to end up receding into the depths of my memory, one of a few dozen pleasant times I’ve had at the theater this year, but that’s one of the joys of an all-you-can-see pass at the local cineplex. Will be worth your while when this eventually hits the Criterion Channel.