Masao Tomi Morri, A Japanese boy who grew up in a rural fishing village and has had some strong Memories with his childhood friend Hisa Numa (hera is the neighbors daughter). He is unsatisfied with his dire future as a fisherman and wants to provide better opportunities to himself and his close ones. While struggling with the thought of him leaving, Hisa finds refuge in the fact that they both have pledged to marry one day. Along with being a college student in the USA, Masao picks up athletics and makes some friends. Dean, one of the fellow students visits Japan only to find himself fishing in a rural village after his boat capsized and he comes across Masao’s once proud close friend, Hisa. Dean eventually falls in love with Hisa.
There is no denying that ‘The Oath of a Sword’ earned its place in the cinematic history despite not being inherently the most riveting picture. The pacing and character development were not the best of what was expected (Dean specifically) but in comparison to it, the portrayal of Asian-Americans and Asians as a whole set a new tone if we were to consider the new aspects that had not previously been seen. Similar to Masao, Hisa is also a character that is shown to be caught in the conflict of two cultures whereas Tomi Morri’s character seems to fit in quite well in both cultures, an example of it would be how Hisa starts to showcase Jiu-Jitsu moves to his classmates. Or asked the tone for when Shaw brought forward the character of Hisa, did he intend to portray how frustrating it could be to find oneself caught in the tussle of two strong cultures?
The impressive feature of “The Oath of the Sword” lies in the story-telling too, with the film focusing on one concept. Asian-Americans and other cultures were treated as “the other” in many ‘features’ even the more recent ones but there’s nothing of the sort in Shaw’s feature whether it was Dean or Masao as the focal point of the plot. Business founders and sport enthusiasts Masao and Dean show their method of integration into the host society, as well as demonstrate the ways of making friends and falling in love.
As a portrayal of Asian Americans, “The Oath of the Sword” is both informative and fascinating. Although it is not a great film by any means, however its themes and characters Average Asian (Hisa) and Mostly American (Masao) are sui generis as far the portrayal of Asian culture is concerned which was scarce in that time period and (unfortunately) is still scarce today.
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