Nele Noppe's List: Japan Week films, anime and noh links

• set in Japan in the 1860
• Munezo Katagiri, a lower caste samura
• They have a hard time adapting. The older samurais feel that fighting with firearms is without honor and goes against tradition.
• He carries Kie home to nurse her back to health, both actions which are viewed as very "improper" for an umarried samurai.
• “A samurai does not inform on his fellows.”
• Meanwhile, rumors are spreading about Katagiri and Kie. Though they clearly love each other, they cannot marry because they are from different castes.
• The Chief Retainer summons Katagiri and orders him to kill Hazama.
• Hazama’s wife visits Katagiri and begs him to let Hazama escape. She offers herself to him in return. Katagiri tells her that it is impossible.
• But before he can make the final strike, Hazama is shot and killed by the riflemen.
• Hazama’s wife had visited the Chief Retainer Hori and offered herself to him if he would spare Hazama’s life.
• To avenge Hazama and his wife, Katagiri assassinates the Chief Retainer with a poisoned needle hidden in the handle of his wakizashi (presumably, "the hidden blade" or "demon's claw" move)
• Hazama’s wife commits hari-kiri upon realizing that she has been deceived.

• In addition to sixteen nominations^[1], the film garnered the following awards:

   
   
  • Award of the Japanese Academy for "Best Art Direction" to Mitsuo Degawa and Yoshinobu Nishioka
   
  • Hochi Film Award for "Best Actress" to Takako Matsu
   
  • Mainichi Film Concours for "Best Supporting Actress" to Tomoko Tabata

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• Set in mid-19th century Japan, a few years before the Meiji Restoration, it follows the life of Seibei Iguchi, a low-ranking samurai employed as a bureaucrat.
• content and happy life with his daughters and senile mother.
• turbulent times conspire against him
• concentrates on showing the main character's everyday struggles, instead of focusing on action-oriented battles. Thus, the film carries very few fight scenes.
• Iguchi Seibei,
• wife succumbs to tuberculosis
• His wife receives a grand funeral, more than what a lowest-ranking samurai such as Seibei could afford.
• Seibei works in the grain warehouse, accounting for stores inventory for the samurai clan.
• condescending nickname "Tasogare Seibei" or "Twilight Seibei" — when evening approaches, Seibei rushes home
• Even though he is of samurai class, Seibei continues downward in a sorry state of neglect of his own appearance, failing to bathe and dressing in the same tattered rags day after day, almost looking more like a peasant than samurai.
• Things change when Seibei's childhood friend, Tomoe (sister of Iinuma Michinojo, one of his better, kinder samurai friends) returns to town.
• divorced
• With much deep regret, Seibei cannot accept Iinuma's offer of his sister's hand in marriage, citing his inferior social status (a 50 koku samurai) and how he did not want to see Tomoe (from a 400 koku samurai family)
• the head of Seibei's clan, having heard of his prowess with a sword, orders Seibei to kill a samurai retainer, Yogo Zen'emon, who has been "disowned"
• insignificant, lowest-ranking samurai are being selected for disownment.
• Before he leaves, he finally tells Tomoe that he was wrong not to propose.
• She regretfully tells Seibei she has already accepted another's proposal and will be married soon

• With deep wounds, Seibei limps home as fast as he could. Kayano and Ito rush to him in the courtyard, happy to see otou-san (father).

   

  Tomoe is there, waiting in the house. They have an emotional reunion.
• his younger daughter explains that their happiness was not to last: He died three years later in the Boshin War,

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• (山田 洋次 Yamada Yōji, born September 13, 1931 in Osaka, Japan)
• Otoko wa tsurai yo (男はつらいよ, "It's tough being a man")

• His movies have won the Best Picture award at the Japanese Academy Awards four times: in 1977 for The Yellow Hankerchief (幸福の黄色いハンカチ Shiawase no Kiiroi Hankachi), in 1991 for My Sons (息子 Musuko), in 1993 for A Class to Remember (学校　Gakkō), and in 2002 for The Twilight Samurai (たそがれ清兵衛 Tasogare Seibei). In 2003 The Twilight Samurai was nominated for the 76th Academy Awards' Best Foreign Language Film.

   

  His 2004 film, The Hidden Blade (Kakushi Ken Oni no Tsume), was nominated for sixteen awards and won three.

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  "The movie's success in Japan was due to the middle-aged and elderly Japanese who identified themselves with Seibei's life," the director, Yoji Yamada, said at a news conference.

      

  "While Japan today is in chaos, I wanted to show that there was an age in which Japanese lived with confidence,"

• in the last days of the Edo Period (1600-1867) a Japan uncannily like the one we're living in today, complete with premodern versions of yen-pinching recessionary lifestyles, corporate restructuring, office politics -- and men who can't say what they feel.
• Seibei (Hiroyuki Sanada), is the mid-19th-century equivalent of a rank-and-file salaryman:
• Then he discovers that his intended victim is a poor man much like himself. How can he kill him with a clean conscience? Why should he even care, now that the love of his life belongs to another man again?
• Yamada finally presents his main themes -- the imminent disappearance of the samurai way in the coming tide of Westernization, the absurdity of mortal combat (and, by extension, war) once the combatants see each other as human beings, and the incurable contrariness of human nature. Sanada and celebrated butoh dancer Tanaka, as Yogoemon, perform their dance of death with power and grace, while connecting as comrades in injustice and misery.

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• Though getting married doesn't stunt a male star's prospects as much as a female star's, idols are a different breed since their appeal among members of the opposite sex is directly linked to their availability.
• In "Bushi no Ichibun" Kimura plays a samurai. Almost everyone in Johnny's has worked at one point or another in NHK's Sunday night historical dramas, but "Bushi no Ichibun" has more to do with the sociology and economics of samurai life than with the genre's action prerogatives.

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  Yoji Yamada, who directed "Bushi," expressed the gist of the comments (though not their over-the-top tenor) by saying, "He knows how to work in a group." It was Kimura's character that was being honored, not his acting chops.
• "Bushi no Ichibun" is already a box-office smash
• Everything related to Johnny's is based on the power of underestimation: See, he's more than just a sex god. Idols are recruited as children based on their looks, and everything they know is drilled into them.
• In the Cyzo article, three of Johnny's former charges talk about how they left the agency and had trouble finding work because they had no real abilities, even though they had sung, danced, and acted while in the company. "When you are in Johnny's," one said, "you don't realize how poor your skills are."

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• Yoji Yamada, 71, is a Japanese film industry icon. His "Tora-san" series, about a wandering peddler who is forever falling in love, but never gets the girl, generated 48 hit installments -- and made Yamada the most successful Japanese director of his generation. He has also won his share of prizes, both domestic and international.
• I had seen many period dramas over the years, but I wasn't satisfied with them. They were full of lies and said nothing about how the samurai really lived.
• I wanted to try to make a film that would show how the samurai lived, ate, talked and felt.
• I wanted to shoot more realistic fight scenes than you see in [samurai movies], even Kurosawa's. I mean, when the bad guys have the hero surrounded, why do they always attack him one at a time, so he can pick them off? Why don't they all go for him at once?
• Also, when the bad guys are cut, they die right away. In reality, it's a lot harder to kill someone in a sword fight, unless you get in a good cut. According to period accounts, samurai sword fights could go for two or three hours. They'd cut each other again and again, until they turned white -- and the weaker one finally fell. That's how it was -- they would slowly die of blood loss.
• Also, back then women didn't usually wear the sorts of flashy clothes that you see in samurai films. They dressed more plainly. They didn't do their makeup as nicely or wear their hair as elaborately. I wanted to show that.
• I tried to include plot elements that present-day Japanese could relate to. When you're ordered to do something by the boss, you have to do it -- or it might be the end of your job.
• Some people buckle under the pressure and commit suicide. I
• She has a modern way of thinking, that's true. In a way, her story is a critique of the feudal system, though the film doesn't spell it out as such.
• In the Middle Ages, Japanese women were fairly strong and made important contributions to culture, but in the Edo Period and the Meiji Era [1868-1912] women more or less disappeared from public view.
• Min Tanaka, the butoh dancer who plays the hero's opponent in the climactic fight,
• He had been in a lot of period dramas, but he told me he was also dissatisfied with them. He wanted to know why everything had to be so beautiful, when it wasn't like that in reality.
• Real samurai stand differently, somewhat like noh actors. Not straight up, but with their hips forward a bit. They take small steps, without lifting their feet from the ground -- they do that to keep the sword steady.

• There's something of a period drama boom now, but unlike "Tasogare Seibei," many of the new period dramas use computer graphics to create fantasy elements. They aren't about realism at all.

      

  Yes, that kind of fantastic film is popular. Also, there are a lot of horror films now. In troubled times like these, more films like that tend to get made -- fantasy and horror. People want to escape, and that's what they go for.
• Japanese are wondering what is going to happen to the country. They feel anxious -- and so do I. What's going to happen to the banks? Is my money going to be there tomorrow? But at the end of "Tasogare Seibei," Seibei is with his children -- and as long as he has his family and they all love each other, he can go on. The audience leaves with the feeling that everything will somehow turn out all right.

• That worries me -- how will people from other countries react? But we're living in anxious times, when people everywhere don't know what is going to happen next. What is the Bush administration going to do? Will they start a war? That is certainly worrying. Why have things come to this pass? Why can't this be settled by the United Nations? Why do we have to have this sort of international conflict? What is going to happen if a war starts?

      

  People from Iran and other Islamic counties who took part in February's Berlin Film Festival certainly felt this sort of anxiety. The world has come to a strange and unpleasant pass. So in that sense, I think people abroad will be able to relate to the film, even though Americans and Europeans don't feel the same economic anxiety as Japanese.

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• Yamada films this story in the same subdued and realistic, if emotionally charged, style as "Tasogare." Instead of the dancelike sword fights of so many jidai geki, though, the duels in "Oni no Tsume" look sweaty, tiring and dangerous. Also, instead of the theme-park appearance of so many jidai geki, with every kimono and fusuma (sliding door) seemingly brand new, the clothes and sets in "Oni no Tsume" have a lived-in, even worn-out, look. Meanwhile, the cast of characters, particularly the lower classes, mostly look in need of a long rest and a few good meals. The full-of-beans folks of so many jidai geki, forever about to burst into song or dance are nowhere in sight.
• Serious though he may be, Yamada is first and foremost an entertainer who is dedicated to giving his large audience what it wants.

• But while the martial-arts-trained Sanada impressed more with his sword skills, Nagase is more convincingly the pacifist at heart who turns to violence only out of extreme necessity -- but knows how to mete it out. The sense of banked fires that can flare up, which Yamada deployed to good effect in the earlier film, is still present, though Nagase, now pushing 40 and no longer the wild kid, really seems to mean it when he says he wants a quiet life with the woman he loves.

      

  When the world is going mad around you, carving out a small oasis of sanity is no mean feat. Sometimes it helps to have a hidden blade.

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