Corrupt monks, scheming merchants, and a geisha who'll ruin everything — Edo-era scandal hits different.
On March 11 in the seventh year of Tenpo (1836), a monk named Bennō, who fell in love with a geisha named Oshima, was publicly exposed at Nihonbashi for committing an illicit act with a woman. While this was happening, an extravagant procession led by another monk named Nikkei passed over the bridge. Nikkei, the head of the Kanouin temple, in collusion with Nakano Harima-no-Kami, had schemed to make his younger sister, Miyoshi, the Shogun's mistress and aimed to transform Kanouin into the Shogun's family temple. To fund the renovations, Nikkei accepted bribes from a corrupt merchant named Koya Bunzo.
Direction
Fuyushima stages the Nihonbashi exposure as public theater.
Costume
Monk robes vs. merchant silks — status coded in fabric.
Director
Taizō Fuyushima
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Tenpo era (1830-1844) saw increasing criticism of Buddhist institutional corruption, making this film part of a long Japanese tradition of 'anti-clerical' storytelling.
The title's 'three Kichisaburos' refers to three thieves using the same alias — a structural joke about identity and deception that mirrors the monks' own moral masquerades.
JP
