OFFICIAL SELECTION - 2026 CANNES FILM FESTIVAL (Cannes Premiere)
OFFICIAL SELECTION - 2026 SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL (Special Presentations)
From renowned writer/director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure, Tokyo Sonata), the majestic new historical thriller THE SAMURAI AND THE PRISONER fuses samurai spectacle with whodunnit intrigue, as a samurai lord is drawn into a series of shadowy murders within his own castle walls in feudal Japan.
Settsu Province, 1578. Lord Murashige Araki (Masahiro Motoki) is barricaded inside his fortress as the forces of powerful rival warlord Nobunaga Oda close in. When Oda’s brilliant strategist Kuroda Kanbei (Masaki Suda) arrives as an envoy bearing a warning, an enraged Murashige imprisons him instead of ordering his execution, keeping him as a valuable yet dangerous pawn. But when an inexplicable murder rocks the castle, Murashige is forced into an uneasy alliance with his captive, whose razor-sharp intellect may be the key to solving the crime and exposing a hidden traitor before the court tears itself apart…
Adapted from the award-winning novel by Honobu Yonezawa, Kurosawa’s richly atmospheric, tightly wound thriller melds samurai and detective genres, drawing on the contemplative simplicity of classic mid-century Japanese cinema to deliver an elegant and probing portrait of power, honour and survival under pressure.
