Yoshihiro Hanno - The SAMURAI and the PRISONER (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (2026) [Hi-Res]

The score was composed by Yoshihiro Hanno (半野喜弘), an Osaka-born musician (b. January 22, 1968) whose career has encompassed film scoring, orchestral composition, and electronic music on an international scale. Since his celebrated work on Hou Hsiao-Hsien's Flowers of Shanghai (1998), praised by European critics as the emergence of a major new film music voice, Hanno has been a trusted collaborator for leading Asian filmmakers — his scores regularly appearing at Cannes and Venice.
The album accompanies Kokurojo: The Samurai and the Prisoner (黒牢城), a historical mystery film written and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, based on Honobu Yonezawa's Naoki Prize-winning novel of the same name. The story unfolds during Japan's Sengoku period: Lord Murashige Araki, having rebelled against the tyrant Oda Nobunaga, finds himself under siege in his own castle, where he enlists the help of captive master strategist Kanbei Kuroda to solve a series of baffling murders within the walls. The film had its world premiere at Cannes Premieres in May 2026, followed by Japanese theatrical release on June 19, 2026.
The soundtrack is structured as a continuous musical arc: the opening "Prelude" and the extended "Postlude" bookend thirty-seven minutes of tightly interwoven cues. Compact action pieces — "Night Attack," "Murashige's Rebellion," "Kanbei's Trap" — alternate with psychologically layered character portraits like "Chiyoho's Confession" and "Kanbei's Resolution." The central track, "Code of the Warring State Period," gestures directly at the novel's thematic core — the moral code of the warrior class in a time of civil war. The album was released on CD on June 12, 2026 by Plaza Mayor Company, Ltd., the London- and Hong Kong-based independent label specialising in worldwide arthouse film scores.

Tracklist:
1-1 Yoshihiro Hanno - The Samurai and the Prisoner (Prelude) [3:19]
1-2 Yoshihiro Hanno - Murashige's Rebellion [1:11]
1-3 Yoshihiro Hanno - Prisoner [2:35]
1-4 Yoshihiro Hanno - End of Summer [3:01]
1-5 Yoshihiro Hanno - Death of Jinen [1:48]
1-6 Yoshihiro Hanno - Kanbei's Resolution [1:15]
1-7 Yoshihiro Hanno - Victory and Death [2:05]
1-8 Yoshihiro Hanno - The Creeping Flames of War [1:42]
1-9 Yoshihiro Hanno - Night Attack [4:39]
1-10 Yoshihiro Hanno - Kanbei's Trap [2:03]
1-11 Yoshihiro Hanno - Strategy [1:47]
1-12 Yoshihiro Hanno - Chiyoho's Confession [1:24]
1-13 Yoshihiro Hanno - Code of the Warring State Period [3:48]
1-14 Yoshihiro Hanno - Illusion [4:39]
1-15 Yoshihiro Hanno - The Way of the Samurai [0:57]
1-16 Yoshihiro Hanno - The Samurai and the Prisoner (Postule) [5:31]