Vengeance is never as simple as one hopes, especially in a tale as epic as this one authored by Jiro Asada in 2003. Fortunately for filmgoers in Japan, that story will finally be told in live-action form when director Setsuro Wakamatsu‘s new period revenge drama, Revenge Of The Pomegranate Tree Hill (Zakuro Zaka no Adauchi) releases on September 20, courtesy of Shochiku.
Shimura Kingo is a samurai retainer whose lord Ii Naosuke is assassinated during the Sakuradamon incident. Instead of allowing himself to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) after the loss of his lord, he goes on a mission to exact vengeance against the perpetrators. Unable to end his own life until his mission is completed, he spends the next 13 years tracking down his lord’s killers until he finally finds the last assassin who had since gone into hiding and changed his name.