Osho / The Grand Master / Chess Master (1948)

 

Daisuke Ito: 王将 / Osho / The Grand Master / Chess Master (JP 1948). Tsumasaburo Bando (Sakata Sankichi). 

王将 / The Grand Master [the title on print] / The Chess Master [Bologna title] / Ōshō, le joueur d'échecs.

    JP 1948. PC: Daiei. P: Masaichi Nagata.

    D+SC: Daisuke Ito. From the pièce of the same name (1947) by Hideji Hojo. DP: Hideo Ishimoto – b&w. PD: Heikichi Kakui. M: Goro Nishi. C: Tsumasaburo Bando (Sakata Sankichi), Mitsuko Mito (Koharu), Miki Sanjo (Tamae), Teruko Naka (Tamae bambino), Osamu Takizawa (Kinjiro Sekine), Osamu Kosugi (Kikuoka), Tatsuo Saito (Okura), Masao Mishima (Shinzo).

    93 min

    Language: Japanese.

    35 mm print from: Japan Foundation, with English subtitles on the print: Stuart J. Walton.

    Courtesy of: Kadokawa Pictures.

    E-subtitles in Italian by SubTi Londra.

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2026: Shadows and Steel: The Cinema of Daisuke Ito.

    Introduced by Alexander Jacoby and Johan Nordström.

    Viewed at Cinema Jolly, 20 June 2026.

Alexander Jacoby e Johan Nordström (Bologna 2026): "Arguably the most famous film of Ito’s postwar career, Osho is a biopic of a master of shogi (the canonical Japanese variant of chess). From a humble background, illiterate and initially self-taught, Sakata Sankichi (1870–1946) rose to rank among the great players of his generation. Ito focuses on his rivalry with Kinjiro Sekine, the leading professional player of his era. Ito ironically disliked competitive games, but seized the chance to depict what Kaoru Mizoguchi called “a noble soul inhabiting a humble body – precisely the type of human being Ito had always loved to depict”. The film was adapted from a successful play by Hideji Hojo (1902–1996), staged in 1947 by Shinkokugeki troupe. Nevertheless, Ito ran into opposition from studio chief Kan Kikuchi, who thought the topic of shogi uncinematic. Determined to focus on the man rather than his matches, Ito rewrote the screenplay nine times before Kan came round. Osho took eighth position in the “Kinema Junpo” critics’ poll of its year, and was later described by Noël Burch as “a masterpiece of its kind, splendidly acted by the great star of silent films Tsumasaburo Bando, whose eccentric, dynamic style prefigures that of Toshiro Mifune in the later films of Kurosawa”. He notes that “The film was shot entirely in studio, and boasts elaborate, atmospheric street-settings in the spirit of the ‘poetic realism’ of the French 1930s and 1940s.” “Kinema Junpo” critic Fuyuhiko Kitagawa hailed it as marking Ito’s emergence from a slump, and praised Ito for overcoming the “sentimental heroism” of the screenplay through his “commanding direction”. Tsumasaburo Bando had been a jidai-geki star since the 1920s. After founding an independent production company in 1925, he had helped to transform the period film, introducing psychologically plausible characters and a consciousness of social inequality. In his last years, he acted several times for Ito."

"The success of Osho led Ito to plan a sequel, which went into production soon afterwards, but was delayed when Bando’s health broke and left unfinished at his death. Ito, however, remade the film in 1962 as a vehicle for Rentaro Mikuni." Alexander Jacoby e Johan Nordström

AA: Daisuke Ito's Osho is a tall tale about the magnificent obsession of the poor sandal maker Sankichi Sakata to become the grand master of shogi, a Japanese variant of chess.

Sakata sacrifices everything to his pursuit, his family and his health, and Daisuke Ito develops to mythic grandeur his narrative, which, however is based on a true story. In the process, Ito turns out to be a master of suspense.

The obstacles seem insurmountable: Sakata's grinding poverty, and his own health. He is on the verge of losing his eyesight, but is saved in the nick of time by a surgeon who admires him.

Far from creating a hagiography, Ito exposes the multiple weaknesses of his character. Sakata is always supported by his family, friends and admirers, and most of all his long-suffering wife.

When Sakata is finally on a winning streak, his daughter is the one who speaks truth to father. She helps him see himself in the mirror of reality and wakes him up from monomania. "She can see through me". Your true friend is the one who tells you the truth you don't want to hear.

Sakata is a mere cheap chess gamer, not a true master in possession of the required nobility of spirit and full intellectual grasp of shogi. A true grand master must be respected by all and not be dependent on clever tricks. Sakata meets his final and greatest challenge: himself, his own spirit. Can he become the great player he is to be, can he fulfill his own true potential? Besides, having already conquered blindness, he now must also fight dementia.

From a tall tale, Ito develops his saga into a story about the triumph of the spirit.

All this takes place in a gritty milieu full of life, with eloquent montages and revelatory high angle shots. Lyrical passages help integrate the story to the environment. Vivid montages and an electrifying mise-en-scène reveal a master of the cinema.

For me, this is the second revelation of the extraordinary talent of the actor Tsumasaburo Bando, whom I admired so in his unforgettable performance in The Rickshaw Man (Hiroshi Inagaki, JP 1943), a treasure of Japanese and world cinema. Starting with Osho, Bando became a Daisuke Ito regular for the rest of his career. His charismatic presence is a combination of physical prowess, candid vulnerability, an earthy sense of humour, a genuine compassion and something that seems to bring echoes from a timeless experience far beyond modernity.

The print on display is a dupe, often with a blurry image, perhaps a blow-up from a 16 mm source. Perhaps Osho is another victim of the fate of Japan's nitrate heritage.