With The Rickshaw Man, Hiroshi Inagaki and Toshiro Mifune turn in a surprisingly nuanced film. Both men are championed for and excelled in broad strokes cinema, for lack of a better term, but this tale of a poor rickshaw man who sees himself confronted with social boundaries, the advent of the industrial age and his own image as a masculine swank is an exercise in sensitive observation. Inagaki uses cinemascope to its full extent (both in scenes with large crowds and in scenes in which he showcases his superior understanding of negative space and deep focus), and Mifune turns in what is probably one of his most memorable performances. Commanding, vulnerable, crass, funny, smart, charming and touching, Matsugoro the Rickshaw Man, as performed by Mifune, is undoubtly one of the more memorable characters of 1950’s Japanese cinema.
Inagaki, who co-wrote the script with Mansaku Itami based on a novel by Shunsaku Iwashita, takes great care in crafting a well-rounded main character. Which also means being honest with the audience about Matsugoro’s weaknesses and failings. We first meet the titular rickshaw man as he is sought out by law enforcement because he got into a fight with a swordsman. Later, he tells the story of that fight to a group of people at an inn and we realize that his performance in the “fight” was pitiable at best, that he acted a big shot but was defeated after only one blow on the head. Matsugoro first appears to be hot-headed, oblivious but also weirdly endearing.
Later, he fights a bunch of people at a theater after he threw garlic on an open fire which greatly offended his fellow theater enthusiasts (most of which are of higher social standing) because of the stench. Instead of getting the garlic out of the fire and enjoy the show, Matsugoro stubbornly decides to challenge some of the men to a fight. Here, he somehow keeps the upper-hand, defeats his opponents and is stopped only by a mediator who finally gets an apology out of him and screws his head back onto his shoulders. These two scenes alone make for fascinating character development. Matsugoro might be a bully at times and can act obnoxiously, but he can also see where he went wrong and learn from his mistakes. In addition, we never know which version of the rickshaw man we’ll get. It’s put to great use in a scene where he goes to an athletics competition. He decides to participate in a race that’s open for the public. At first, it seems like he will be left behind very quickly by his competitors who seem more athletic and don’t goof around as much as he does. But by the end, Matsugoro outlasts them all because he kept a steady pace and didn’t overdo it in the first few rounds. He wins the race.
That particular scene is also a great showcase for the actor Mifune. The way he carries himself physically in the scene is remarkable. Matsugoro has a physicality unlike any other Mifune character that I have seen so far. His lanky running style is hilarious at first but turns out to be a competent way of winning a race. While Mifune carries his body the same way throughout the scene, he subtly transforms before our very eyes from good-natured goof to competitive candidate for the win. All throughout the film he appears physically intimidating when needed, vulnerable when confronted with an impossible love he has for a woman he can't have and goofy when his temperament gets him into a predicament. It's a remarkable performance from Mifune who's histrionics could sometimes get the best of him and who's iconic performances in Seven Samurai and Yojimbo are excellent but broad.
Yet, his nuanced performance in The Rickshaw Man doesn't mean that he loses his trademark intensity. However, he channels it differently. The film's story kicks in when Matsugoro is hired by a couple to transport their boy Toshio to and from doctor's appointments. Both Matsugoro and the family grow close. When Toshio's father dies, the rickshaw man becomes a sort of surrogate father figure and develops feelings for Yoshioko, the boy's mother. It is here that Mifune does truly exceptional work full of tenderness and emotion. Being a man's man, Mifune has no problems playing the scenes in which Matsugoro tries to teach Toshio what it means to be a worthy male. But he is equally heart breaking in scenes in which he tries to be close to Yoshioko but knows he will never be able to be with her because she belongs to a higher class.
The Rickshaw Man, then, is not only a finely observed character study of a simple worker who takes the boy of a wealthier man under his wing, but also a subtle critique of debilitating social conventions and a study of what it means to be a man in different social milieus. For Matsugoro has a different approach to masculinity than the boy's parents. When Yoshioko is worried that Toshio might get into a fight, Matsugoro simply retorts that fights are a normal rite of passage for young men. Where intellectual ability and academic achievement might be of fundamental importance to Toshio's parents, Matsugoro values physical prowess and a certain subdued macho attitude. Both worldviews clash in Toshio's education but the script doesn't raise a fuss about it. We are simply presented with some observations and are left to make up our own mind.
The Rickshaw Man is a deep text that warrants many more viewings before I could make a final assessment but there is no doubt that while The Samurai Trilogy is an excellent and very entertaining spectacle, Rickshaw Man is a superior film that shows that when Inagaki paints in shades of grey the result is sublime. From the intimate story over the superb compositions and bravura camera movements to the performances, Inagaki and company get everything right. It is unfortunate, then, that the film is not available on DVD in the United States as of yet.
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