The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail

Adapted from Noh and Kabuki theatre, Kurosawa’s classic tale of deception sees a lord and his bodyguard disguise themselves as monks to bypass an enemy roadblock.

This early Kurosawa film is based on a traditional story that exists in both Noh and Kabuki stage versions, with director making use of elements from both. A young nobleman has to cross a checkpoint in his flight from a vengeful brother, and impersonates a porter to do so; one of his juniors has to beat him to make the deception more convincing, but thereby violates one of the prime tenets of the feudal code.