In An Actor's Revenge, a Kabuki actor knowingly manipulates the gossamer walls between theater, life, and afterlife to wreak a terrible vengeance on three villains responsible for his parents' death. "An actor's revenge is always a surprise," comments one character, and indeed, Ichikawa interpreted a hoary melodrama, handed to him as a commercial penance, with an audacious screen formalism that can be compared to a dazzling, multilayered, CinemaScope jazz improvisation. He juxtaposes painted sets with naturalistic scenes, lets shadows go free of the figures who made them, combines comic-book with Bertolt Brecht to bring the artifice of traditional Kabuki-with its lifts, revolving stages, and disappearing flats-into the film age. Matinee idol Kazuo Hasegawa celebrated his 300th film appearance by recreating the dual roles he had played in Kinugasa's 1935 version of the story, that of the onnagata (female impersonator) whose persona is maintained offstage as well as on; and of the burly small-time crook Yamitaro, who enjoys nothing more than spying on the actor in his offstage charades. (JB)