Category Archives: Japan

The Samurai and the Prisoner (黒牢城)

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  • 黒牢城 (The Samurai and the Prisoner)

8/5/26 (Wed)

Kurosawa Kiyoshi makes a rare venture into period pieces with this detective story posing as a samurai drama, based on a Naoki Prize-winning novel of 2021. The creative Japanese title translates as “Black Prison Castle”, referring to the dungeon in which one character is held, the castle itself that the lord has effectively made a prison, and the dark mindset in which the lord resides. I thought this might be an historical nickname for the real-life structure, which is actually named Arioka Castle, but it’s apparently an invention by the book’s author and is not mentioned in either the book or screenplay. It’s been noted that “kuro” (black) is part of the hostage’s name (Kuroda) and thus may be a subtle reference to him as well. Whatever. I assume that US distributors felt it necessary to throw “samurai” in as a marketing ploy, but I really wish they’d use some imagination. (For one thing, the lead is a daimyo, not a mere samurai, though I’m sure the distributors will argue that it’s a comment on the role reversal in the story.)

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The Black Lizard (黒蜥蜴, 1968 film)

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  • 黒蜥蜴 (The Black Lizard, 1968 film)

7/5/26 (Sun)

I decided to watch Fukasaku Shinji’s 1968 film of Mishima Yukio’s nutty detective comedy upon the death of its star, the cross-dressing Miwa Akihiro, just last week at the age of 91. The part in the original 1962 stage show was played by an actual female, the venerable Mizutani Yaeko, but Miwa (reputedly Mishima’s lover) became closely associated with the show over the years. Despite claims to the contrary, Miwa was not playing the role in drag, which implies some sort of parody, but in utmost seriousness as a woman in a Japanese tradition going back centuries. That fits the hall-of-mirrors free-flow of identities throughout, not least when Miwa disguises himself as a man – a Victor Victoria touch that highlights the moment in a way that actresses can’t touch. (Miwa performs here under his real name Maruyama, but I’ll refer to him below by his much better known stage name.)

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Bye Bye Love (バイバイラブ)

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  • バイバイラブ (Bye Bye Love)

7/4/26 (Sat)

A gender-bending piece of 1974 by Fujisawa Isao, his only feature movie after stints as assistant director to Hiroshi Teshigahara (on Woman in the Dunes and The Face of Another, no less) and on yakuza films. I can see the influence of the former in the slipperiness of identity, and Bonnie and Clyde is an obvious inspiration (others frequently mention Pierrot le Fou, which I haven’t seen). It’s not the first Japanese film with an overtly gay character – the wild Funeral Parade of Roses beat it by five years – but it has an arresting take on the subject. While the film was apparently a relative success at the time, it had been thought lost for years and was only rediscovered in 2022.

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Good Morning (お早う)

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  • お早う (Good Morning)

12/19/21 (Sun)

Ozu’s 1959 film was supposed to be a remake of his 1932 silent classic I Was Born, But…, but the only resemblance was the presence of two young brothers rebelling against their parents (hunger strike in earlier film vs. vow of silence here). One of the last films he ever made, it still feels fresh and fun.

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Season of the Sun (太陽の季節)

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  • 太陽の季節 (Season of the Sun)

5/2/26 (Sat)

Takumi Furukawa wrote and directed this highly successful 1956 adaptation of Ishihara Shintaro’s sensational best-seller of one year earlier, which gave the movement its Sun Tribe name.

The plot is not much different from the subsequent Sun Tribe masterpiece Crazed Fruit, also based on an Ishihara novel. As I commented there, the film

“features a group of bored rich 20-year-olds, who grew up in the shadow of defeat with no memory of Japan’s pre-war past and no sense of a future. They spend their time idling away their days in sailboats, nightclubs and cars in a bid to fight off tedium, devoted mainly to gambling, drinking, picking fights, dancing and especially hunting women, albeit just for momentary pleasure (including orgies) rather than anything as permanent as romance.”

However, Season, at least in its film version, is less focused than the later work. It tries too hard in its nihilism to a point that doesn’t make sense. The lead’s rejection of the main female character may have seemed cool on paper but is not realistic as presented, especially when she tells him she’s pregnant. I’m sure the idea is that he’s wedded to his all-embracing apathy – a protest against the passion that drove the previous generation to war – to an extent that destroys him and others around him. That is, the willful disengagement of the Sun Tribe generation is no better than the blind nationalism that preceded it. A powerful theme, suggesting that the young are as caught up unthinkingly in a national mood as their parents were. But the main character seems to be striking an attitude rather than feeling it. The film needs a more credible story to work, which Ishihara achieved in the later Fruit.

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All My Children (みんなわが子)

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  • みんなわが子 (All My Children)

5/2/26 (Sat)

Ieki Miyoji’s 1963 elegiac work follows several dozen kids evacuated from Tokyo to safer areas away from their families during the war, based on an actual record of children moved from a Tokyo elementary school. The filmmakers were themselves familiar with such experiences and have clearly recreated this with heart. The setting is a village in the Kanto region in what we now know were the final months of the war.

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Noh: Kan’yokyu (咸陽宮)

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  • Noh: 咸陽宮 (Kan’yokyu)

4/26/26 (Sun)

Kan’yokyu (Xianyang Palace), taken largely from a rendition in Tale of the Heike, is a rarely produced China-set Noh drama based on an actual attempted assassination of China’s first emperor. Info on the play is hard to come by, so I took advantage of the opportunity to see it.

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Bunraku: Ehon Taikoki, Kanjincho (絵本太功記、勧進帳)

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  • Bunraku: 絵本太功記、勧進帳 (Ehon Taikoki, Kanjincho)

2/23/26 (Mon)

These were the second and third shows of a three-part production this month. Part 1 consisted of the first few acts of Ehon Taikoki, with succeeding acts in Part 2. I considered seeing the first two together since the full show is not done often in Bunraku (this was the first time in the Kanto region for certain acts in 20 years) and not at all in Kabuki, which has preserved just the 10th act of the 14-act show. But that would come to over six hours of showtime, a bit too much to ask of my friend. Bunraku lost its permanent home in Tokyo when the National Theater closed several years ago and is wandering among venues with each production, shedding fans along the way; this one was not even in Tokyo, and the theater was way too large for a puppet drama. But Yokohama is a massive city as well, and with the rarity of the pieces, both shows were nearly sold out, which was nice to see. The overall theme seemed to be losers from turning points in Japanese history, namely the treacherous Akechi Mitsuhide and the tragic hero Minamoto Yoshitsune. (The first play uses different names due to shogunal restrictions, but I’m using the historic names here.)

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The Gentle Twelve (12人の優しい日本人)

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  • 12人の優しい日本人 (The Gentle Twelve)

4/23/13 (Tue)

Nakahara Shun’s 1991 film version of a play from the previous year by the prolific Mitani Koki envisioning jury duty à la Japonaise based on the format of Twelve Angry Men – call it “Twelve Not-So-Angry Japanese”. While the jury system has since been introduced in Japan, Mitani seems less interested in politics than in showing the Japanese temperament at work. Twelve jurors initially dismiss a murder case in an eagerness to get their duty over with and return home, but one of them has second thoughts and forces a serious discussion, which proceeds in the movie roughly in real time. A man has been run over by a truck after allegedly being pushed into the street by his ex-wife. But was it premeditated or self-defense? Did the woman have murderous intent, or did she push him without realizing the truck was coming?

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Back to the Future the Musical (バックトゥザフューチャー)

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  • バックトゥザフューチャー (Back to the Future the Musical)

3/29/26 (Sun), Tokyo

I didn’t bother to see this in London or New York, wary as always about another movie-to-musical adaptation. But a friend had an extra ticket to this sold-out Japanese-language production, and I had heard good things about the staging, handled here as on the West End/Broadway by John Rando. As usual for productions by the giant Gekidan Shiki theatrical group, I saw no children at all at this family-oriented show. Families are crowded out by the avid Shiki fans, for better or worse.

The show itself is just the movie on stage with some mediocre songs thrown on top in all the predictable places. Continue reading →

Noh: Togan Koji, Choryo (東岸居士, 張良)

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  • Noh: 東岸居士, 張良 (Togan Koji, Choryo)

3/22/26 (Sun)

Togan Koji: An infrequently performed play by Zeami. The title can be translated as Lay Priest of the Eastern Shore, the latter referring to the entry point to the paradise on the west. Togan Koji, a real-life personage (he has a grave in Nagoya), was a disciple of Jinen Koji, the subject of a play by Zeami’s father. Whereas that play involved a kidnapping of a young girl and her dramatic rescue, Togan has little story at all. But that doesn’t mean lack of content.

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Noh: Hachinoki (鉢木)

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  • Noh:鉢木 (Hachinoki)

10/16/25 (Sun)

A monk wandering in the snow receives shelter in the home of a poor man. The man and his wife do their best to make their guest comfortable despite their straitened circumstances, providing a roof and humble millet and, most movingly, burning their prized potted trees for warmth, reminding me vaguely of La Bohème. (The title Hachinoki, or “The Potted Plants,” evidently implies a deeper container than the shallow dishes used in bonsai, but the concept sounds much the same.) The monk suspects from the man’s bearing and references to ancient poetry that something is amiss, and the man eventually confesses that he was formerly a samurai whose lands were unfairly usurped. He says that despite his troubles, he remains loyal to the shogun and would ride to his call even now if needed with his rusty armor, broken spear and weak horse. The monk, touched, encourages the couple as he takes his leave.

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