(Orochi) (A.k.a. A Monster Serpent) The Outlaw is presented with recorded benshi narration by the late master Shunsui Matsuda accompanied by the traditional musical ensemble. Matsuda, the mentor of Midori Sawato, learned his craft in the thirties from his father, a benshi in a regional screen troupe, and began his career while still a boy. The benshi's role gradually died out with talkies, however Matsuda is almost singlehandedly responsible for reviving the art in the sixties, interpreting the silent films he had collected over many years. Matsuda, who died in 1987, in 1979 directed a film on the actor Tsumasaburo Bando which screens Sunday, June 11. In the early 1920s the Japanese period film was being transformed by the introduction of scripts, intertitles, more sophisticated camerawork and editing, and the fast-paced realistic swordplay that replaced the slow, stylized movements borrowed from kabuki. A new hero also emerged in the figure of the nihilist ronin who reflected the frustrations of the white-collar unemployed. Orochi, the earliest of the extant nihilist ronin films, chronicles the tragic decline of a young samurai (Tsumasaburo Bando) rejected by the girl he loves and unjustly expelled from his clan. Forced into the life of a destitute ronin, he experiences a series of misunderstandings that lead to the undeserved reputation of a depraved outlaw. Immersed in the corruption that pervades society, his values deteriorate until he nearly rapes a young woman who had rejected his advances. In the end, overwhelmed by the hypocrisy that surrounds him, he lashes out in a fierce battle with the shogun's police force. In this final fight Bando combines defiance and pathos with a remarkable display of the skilled and graceful swordplay that made him one of Japan's most popular period film stars. Lisa Spalding