The first film made by Daisuke Ito after moving to Nikkatsu, this is also noteworthy as his first collaboration with actor Denjiro Okochi, who was to star in many of his most famous silent films. The title, a word borrowed from the Chinese, means “the grudge that one cannot forget”. Set in the late Edo pe­riod (1603-1868), Chokon depicts the tragic lives of two brothers, Kazuma and Tsugio Iki, who both fall in love with the same girl, Yukie. Tsugio loses his sight as a result of a sword fight; Yukie nurs­es Tsugio back to health and eventually falls in love with him. Having lost all that is dear to him, Kazuma gets into a desperate fight, and after dispatching countless opponents is finally slain.

The original film was six reels long, of which fully half, the last three reels, were dedicated to the swordfighting scenes. Sadly only a single reel, the final one, now survives. Nevertheless, it fully illus­trates its director’s stylistic flair. Hiroshi Komatsu writes that the film exhibits a “visual style inspired by contemporary French cinema”, in which Ito “displays virtually every element of the impres­sionist cinema: fast-moving camera, unusual camera angles, rapid cutting, double exposure, etc.”

Alexander Jacoby e Johan Nordström