The Betrayal Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

The Betrayal Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 16, 2025

Japanese culture is often perceived (by some outsiders at least) as an inherently "polite" society with a strong foundation of honorable behavior, and in that regard while some of their battles may not have exactly been "polite", samurai are often proffered as the very exemplars of what being "honorable" means. That perception is almost immediately upended in The Betrayal, a film which intentionally offers some "revisionist history" and which makes a supposedly, well, honorable samurai into something akin to The Fugitive, including that bit about being falsely accused of a murder. Takuma Kobuse (Raizô Ichikawa*) is an up and coming clan member already betrothed to Namie (Kaoru Yachigusa), the daughter of Takuma's mentor and clan leader. Unfortunately, the leader's son is involved in a murder, and Takuma is tasked with taking the fall for the crime, albeit with an understanding that after a year hiding out he can return and be miraculously "exonerated" and returned to his status in the clan.

*Note: I'm following the transliteration / name order offered by the printed material accompanying this release.

Some of the supplements as well as the insert booklet essay and back cover verbiage on this release deal with the context of the tendency toward revisionist efforts in the samurai film idiom in the 1960s, and as such The Betrayal serves as a prime example of the deconstruction of an at least perceived mythology. Takuma has his own beliefs in a chivalric code repeatedly, well, betrayed, until he's as desperate as any real criminal. What's at least passingly interesting here is the dialectic between "belonging" to a clan and needing to carve out an individual course once circumstances dictate. The film arguably has a too vignette driven approach in its second act, which actually plays like the television version of The Fugitive, with the distressed hero coming this close to getting caught (by more than one potential adversary instead of just Inspector Gerard in this particular formulation), and then of course ultimately escaping and moving on to his next moment of peril.

The film's kind of unrelenting nihilism is one of its most striking aspects, and that dour sensibility is mirrored in a really effective performance by Ichikawa. The consistently striking black and white cinematography Chikashi Makiura is another real standout.

The Betrayal Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Betrayal is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Radiance Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Radiance's insert booklet provides a bit of generic information on the transfer:

The Betrayal was transferred in high definition by the Kadokawa Corporation and supplied to Radiance Films as a high definition digital file. It is presented in the original aspect ratio with original mono audio.

I've been on record as not always favoring these "pre delivered" masters, especially if no further work was done on them, but in this instance the presentation has a lot going for it, most noticeably a consistent accounting of contrast and some impressively deep blacks and nicely modulated gray scale. I'm a bit less consistently impressed with detail levels, which are admittedly frequently excellent, especially in some close-ups or even in what may have been some split diopter moments. There are nonetheless some variances in fine detail in particular, sometimes in concert with expected anamorphic oddities especially at the edges of the frame. Grain can be relatively heavy but encounters no real compression issues. My score is 4.25.

The Betrayal Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Betrayal features an LPCM 2.0 Mono track in the original Japanese. Some noticeable distortion is evident in the opening underscore accompanying the credits, and occasionally thereafter in some of the more amped up scoring moments (and even occasionally with some of the slightly weird grunting sound effects). Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

The Betrayal Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Scene Specific Commentary by Tom Mes (HD; 41:23) covers four sequences.


• The Path to Betrayal (HD; 9:42) is an interesting visual essay by Philip Kemp comparing this film to a silent version of the same story done in 1925, which might suggest that the thesis that historical revisionism was a "sixties" affair might be at least somewhat mistaken.


• The Four Elements of Tokuzo Tanaka (HD; 9:24) is a visual essay by Tom Mes that addresses what Mes feels are four key themes in Tanaka's oeuvre.

An insert booklet offers an especially interesting essay by Alain Silver along with the usual cast / crew and technical information.

The Betrayal Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Betrayal may strain credulity on more than one occasion (including an almost gonzo finale), but it has a really distinctive emotional ambience and some very striking stylistic flourishes. Technical merits are generally solid (video probably more than audio), and the supplements are all very interesting. Recommended.