The Invisible Swordsman - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Invisible Swordsman



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
As a huge lover of Asian cinema, having grown up during the heyday of Hong Kong action movies, I feel that I have a slight hole in my collective experience. That being the fact that my knowledge of Japanese cinema is severely restricted compared to my knowledge of Chinese, South Korean, and Thai filmmaking. I, of course, have seen the classic Japanese samurai pictures of ye olden days, such as Sanjuro, Yojimbo, The Seven Samurai, etc., but the more fringe and niche level pictures have mostly eluded me for some reason. Most likely because there were so many Hong Kong and (now) South Korean films coming out that I simply didn’t have time to branch into other avenues as much. So when I saw that Arrow Studios was releasing the 1970 Japanese film The Invisible Swordsman, I figured it was the perfect time to branch out.

Sanshiro (Osamu Sakai) is the cowardly son of a brave Samurai who is considered “good for nothing” by his family thanks to his weak fencing ability. When his father is murdered by a group of thieves known as “the Phantom Thieves”, Sanshiro desperately wants to avenge his father’s murder, but can’t really do anything about it. Shouting into the void his frustration, Sanshiro is visited by a friendly specter who gives him the formula for creating an invisibility potion to aid him in his quest. After going out and digging up the herbs and items he needs, the cowardly Samurai ends up making the potion. With this in hand, the bumbling doof now at least has an edge in trying to find out who murdered his father.

Being that nobody knows who the Phantom Thieves are, Sanshiro has to use his invisibility to hunt around and dig out the perpetrators, and while doing so, has to continue to play the fool in real life even though he wants to let everyone know how successes so far. But no matter what, his plan to avenge his father remains intact. At first, it’s one dead end after another, but after a run-in with a drunk Ronin, he gains his ties to the perpetrators and finally can come face to face with the men who destroyed his life.

The Invisible Swordsman is not exactly plagued with an overly complex plot, nor is it meant to be a serious Samurai film. Daiei pictures clearly mapped this out as a Japanese comedy, much like the old Don Knotts comedies of the 1960s, like The Shakiest Gun in the West. Osamu Sakai plays his character like a straight man, while everyone around him pulls the funny man card. There’s not a whole lot of comedic dialogue like American films, but rather the flick relies nearly entirely only Three Stooges-esque style body humor, with over-exaggerated facial expressions and visceral reactions to what is going on. The best way to describe this film is if Don Knotts himself did a Samurai flick over in Japan. It’s not a perfect comparison, but it’s pretty close.

Created as a direct follow-up to the Yokai Monsters trilogy, the Invisible Swordsman was one of their better “post-Yokai” flicks to date, according to everything I’ve read on the subject, and I can see why. The Invisible Swordsman is a fun and lighthearted affair that relies on late 60s “invisible guy” movie tropes akin to the Absent Minded Professor, or Now You See Him, Now You Don’t, which were released by Disney around the same time period. It’s cute, a bit cliched, but it hits that spot for a fun little jaunt that doesn’t take itself too seriously compared to the dark seriousness of most Japanese Samurai films.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

Since I’ve never once seen what The Invisible Swordsman looked like in any previous home video incarnation, I can not give a direct comparison, but the Blu-ray looks pretty decent for a shoestring budget Japanese comedy. According to the press release, Arrow didn’t do their own mastering process for the film, but instead was provided the master already completed by Kadokawa, Japan. I’m not usually wild about the pre-made masters Arrow gets vs. them doing it themselves (Arrow is generally very meticulous), but overall this is a solid-looking image all things considered. Aside from some of the intentional visual choices as laid out in the VERY impressive commentary track, the film is heavily browned, with large swathes of the film playing out in complete darkness. This leads to a very murky look overall, with only small moments that stand out as being truly exemplary. Fine details are hit or miss due to the darkness, but there’s still plenty enough to feel satisfactory. The scene where Kanju the Ronin steals the flowers looks nice, with a bright red Kimono, and a fairly neutral look to skin tones. Others, such as when Sanshiro is making the potion late at night, not nearly so much. Great is a bit heavy and chunky, but Arrow’s Blu-ray sports a high enough bitrate that I’m guessing it’s simply a factor in the low light it was shot in. Overall, it’s solid enough, but nothing spectacular.









Audio:

The LPCM Mono track fares about as well as the video does, being good enough to get the job done, but some definite age and time period-related quirks are mixed in as well. The dialogue sounds clean enough for the most part, but it’s a bit sharp on the high end, with some obvious clipping when the action scenes commence. There are some minor pops and crackles throughout, but nothing too wild. There’s a mild amount of underlying hiss on the entire mix, but I had to strain to hear it most of the time, so take that as merely a nitpick. All in all, it’s a perfectly fine Mono track from a low-budget Japanese film.









Extras:

• Commentary from author and Asian culture expert Jonathan Clements
• The Invisible People
• Phantom Fighter
• Image Gallery

Final Score:

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Going in for my virgin viewing, I ended up liking The Invisible Swordsman more than I expected. I really didn’t know what to expect after viewing the trailer for the film, but after about the first 15 minutes, I started getting into the zone for this, pulling up the same level of accommodation as I would seeing The Absent-Minded Professor in a more modern age. Arrow’s encode looks solid enough, considering that they were already given a completed master by Kadokawa instead of doing it themselves, and the audio definitely suffered a bit. But overall, this Blu-ray release is very faithful to the old 1970s film stock, and while not perfect, certainly does a fine enough job on Blu-ray. Well worth a watch if you’re in for off-beat foreign comedies. ESPECIALLY old timey ones.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Hachiro Oka, Yasushi Yokoyama, Kiyoshi Nishikawa
Directed by: Yoshiyuki Kuroda
Written by: Tetsuro Yoshida
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: Japanese: LPCM Mono
Subtitles: English
Studio: Arrow
Rated: NR
Runtime: 78 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: June 24th, 2025

Recommendation: Fun Watch for a Niche Audience