Category Archives: Japan

Immortal Love (永遠の人)

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  • 永遠の人 (Immortal Love)

8/11/23 (Fri)

The Japanese title of Kinoshita Keisuke’s 1961 film is literally “the everlasting person”, which would at first glance imply a soul mate or life partner. Here, however, it is used ironically to indicate someone that the protagonist can never shake off – the memory of her true love, the reality of her spiteful husband, or possibly the resentful person that she herself has become. The British title, Bitter Spirit, comes closer to the sense of this relentlessly bleak film.

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Roningai (浪人街)

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  • 浪人街 (Roningai)

7/23/23 (Sun), home, w/ Shinpei, 4:30-6:30p

Kuroki Kazuo’s 1990 film is the fourth remake of a silent-era epic by the legendary Makino Masahiro. Masahiro himself was supposed to helm the work as a tribute to his father Shozo, known as the founder of Japanese film, but became sick and passed the mantle on for some reason to Kuroki, not known for period pieces. Unfortunately his lack of experience shows.

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A Look Back: Madame Butterfly (Japanese production)

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The NY Times ran a typically overwrought article today entitled, “Reimagining ‘Madame Butterfly,’ With Asian Creators at the Helm“. It talks as usual of the piece as problematic and describes how the Asian community in the US is trying to address that. It mentions in passing a production by Japanese director Amon Miyamoto, which I discussed a few years back. I also touched upon Japan’s own relationship with the work, which remains one of the nation’s most frequently performed operas. Here is a rerun of that piece.
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May 26, 2020

The iconoclastic Japanese stage director Amon Miyamoto has a problem with Madame Butterfly. The stereotypical image of a spurned geisha? The sexual exploitation of a 15-year-old girl? A warped Western view of his country?

No, he feels that the opera mistreats the American.

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The Sword of Doom (大菩薩峠 )

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  • 大菩薩峠 (The Sword of Doom)

6/27/23 (Tues)

Okamoto Kihachi is known for his offbeat approach to his material, so I wasn’t ready for this decidedly bleak 1966 film, which was apparently imposed upon him by the studio. The Japanese title Daibosatsu Toge (The Great Bodhisattva Pass), referring historically to an important mountain pass on the road to Edo, was also the title of an epic 41-volume novel that was published over a 30-year period and had already been filmed multiple times. The name of the peak, these days a relatively easy hike not far from Tokyo, implies the border between this world and a more exalted state and was presumably used in the book as a metaphor. It’s hard to judge that here since the intended trilogy ended with the first film after flopping in Japan (though it did better overseas). Okamoto soon returned to form in the wacky Kill!, but this work has gained in reputation over the years.

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Samurai Spy (異聞猿飛佐助)

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  • 異聞猿飛佐助 (Samurai Spy)

6/25/23 (Sun), home, 4:30-6:15p

Shinoda Masahiro’s 1965 Ibun Sarutobi Sasuke (literally The Extraordinary Tale of Sarutobi Sasuke) revolves around the fictional ninja character who had already been a staple of manga, film and television for decades. Supposedly inspired by a real person (or persons), Sasuke is the most famous member of an invented group of ten ninja who sided with the Toyotomi clan in its unsuccessful battle against the Shogun. He is often portrayed with magical powers and is sometimes said to have been raised by apes – Sarutobi means “leaping monkey” or “flying monkey”. The English title is misleading in that respect since the subject is really ninja, but it falls in line with the predilection for the word “samurai” those days in other drastically renamed Japanese period films (Samurai Rebellion, Samurai Vendetta, Vendetta for a Samurai). That’s Hollywood, I guess.

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Monster (怪物)

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  • 怪物 (Monster)

6/11/23 (Sun)

Director Koreeda Hirokazu’s films are always an event, and the latest opens on the heels of its win at Cannes for best screenplay by television writer Sakamoto Yuji – the first time Koreeda has directed someone else’s work in nearly three decades. It is also noted for its music by Sakamoto Ryuichi, who was dying of the cancer that would kill him earlier this year before the film premiered. He was only able to complete two new numbers, the remainder of the score being chosen from his extensive back catalogue. Less publicized here was its Queer Palm Award, a prize given for selected works entered at Cannes, which hints at one of the underlying plot points.

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Vendetta for a Samurai (荒木又右衛門 決闘鍵屋の辻)

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  • 荒木又右衛門 決闘鍵屋の辻 (Vendetta for a Samurai)

6/10/23 (Sat)

Mori Kazuo’s 1952 film is based on the Igagoe vendetta, one of Japan’s three great vendettas alongside the Soga brothers (referenced in the film) and the 47 Ronin. The story has been memorialized on many occasions, most notably in one of the great plays of Bunraku and Kabuki theater (which lasts a miniseries-sized 7-8 hours if done in full) as well as dozens of films and television dramas. Mori, however, digs behind the legend to tell his distinctive version. Much credit goes to the script by no less than Kurosawa Akira, who must have had his hands full in the director’s chair after the global fame of the previous year’s Rashomon and that year’s Ikiru. The Japanese title is literally Showdown at Kagiya Crossing, which I actually prefer. (That would also avoid confusion with Mori’s later Samurai Vendetta, which has the much more evocative Japanese title Hakuoki (Chronicle of the Pale Pink Cherry Blossoms). English titlists need a better imagination.)

An overwrought opening chambara scene of intrepid derring-do turns out to be an amusing spoof of a legend in which Mataemon is said to have killed 36 men alongside his brave troupe. The narration reveals that the truth was quite different, and the film thereafter examines the real story as drawn from the historical records, at least as interpreted by Mori and Kurosawa. Heroes and villains are not as clear cut as their Kabuki counterparts, and the showdown is nowhere near the photogenic epic that we are expecting.

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Kill! (斬る)

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  • 斬る (Kill!)

6/7/23 (Wed)

Okamoto Kihachi made this film in the same year (1968) as his batty The Human Bullet, and it bears much the same sensibility. The Japanese title Kiru means to slash to death, so the similarly sounding English Kill! must have been too tempting to resist. The added exclamation mark is in line with the spirit of this chambara comedy, not a crowded field. The film comes from the same source material as Sanjuro but takes it in an entirely new direction. While it’s nowhere near the level of that classic, it makes for an interesting comparison.

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Sword of the Beast (獣の剣)

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  • 獣の剣 (Sword of the Beast)

6/6/23 (Tues)

Gosha Hideo’s 1965 Sword of the Beast is his second feature film and first original piece, working with the same writer as Three Outlaw Samurai. He sticks with the beast image as in the previous title. As per the times, this is again a critique of the shogunate with its unfeeling ethos that requires a suppression of one’s humanity to survive.

The story opens in 1857, when the arrival of the Black Ship four years earlier (referred to in the film) has set in motion events that are about to wreak a momentous transformation in Japan. But the characters don’t know that yet, sensing only vague change in the air. When we meet the low-ranking samurai Gennosuke, he is a fugitive, having killed a clan official who rejected his proposal for democratic reform. He is being pursued by the official’s daughter, who is determined to avenge her father’s death.

All is not as it seems, however. Continue reading →

Three Outlaw Samurai (三匹の侍)

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  • 三匹の侍 (Three Outlaw Samurai)

6/4/23 (Sun)

Gosha Hideo’s 1964 Three Outlaw Samurai, his first feature-length film, was a prequel to his hugely popular television series of the same name with the same three leads. The series had already been running a year at that point and continued for around 26 episodes annually through March 1969, gathering ratings as high as 42%. (They tried a sequel with new stars the following year, but that only lasted 13 episodes.) The Japanese title, Sanbiki no Samurai, is a play on words: the usual phrase sannin (three [people] – Shichinin no Samurai is the title for Kurosawa’s Seven ~), is replaced here by sanbiki, using the counter for animals, as in Sanbiki no Kobuta (the Three Little Pigs). It’s pretty much untranslatable – a herd of samurai, maybe? – but I guess they did the best they could.

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Samurai Rebellion (上意討ち 拝領妻始末)

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  • 上意討ち 拝領妻始末 (Samurai Rebellion)

5/28/23 (Sun)

Kobayashi Masaki’s superb 1967 film is oddly titled Samurai Rebellion in English, veering significantly from the Japanese title Jo-i Uchi: Hairyo Tsuma Shimatsu (roughly Decree of Execution: Account of a Wife Bestowed [to a vassal or such by the lord]). In the film, the officials present the command with “jo-i” (official decree) clearly written on the envelope. The subtitle has been creatively translated by some, including film critic Donald Richie (who should know better), as “Receive the Wife”, with speculation that this was added by the studio as a way to attract women to a samurai drama. That seems dubious given that it was in fact the title of the source novel; it was the jo-i uchi that was added later. I imagine that the studio was simply seeking to capitalize on the novel’s success. The English title is misleading since the events are better characterized as resolute resistance to authority than outright rebellion, which implies something more active and larger scale; the samurai are not seeking to overturn the system but to resist the unjust pressure on their family. That is, the English emphasizes the courage of the samurai, while the Japanese refers to the unfairness of the rulers.

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Goyokin (御用金)

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  • 御用金 (Goyokin)

5/26/23 (Thurs)

Gosha Hideo’s 1959 film finds the young Oriha returning to her seaside village after five years of indentured service to discover a town devoid of all life other than Hitchcockian groups of greedy crows. Everyone has vanished without a trace. We learn that Rokugo (Tamba Tetsuro), the chief samurai of the fictional Sabai clan (presumably modeled on the real-life Sabae clan in present-day Fukui Prefecture), had waylaid a ship carrying the shogun’s gold from nearby Sado Island, recruited the villagers to steal the treasure, and allowed the ship to sink, thus making it appear an accident. He then had his men slaughter the villagers to prevent word getting back to the shogunate, and spread the word that their disappearance was the work of magical forces known by the superstitious as kami-kakushi, literally “hidden by the gods”. (The phrase is interestingly left untranslated in the subtitles. It was deftly rendered in the title of a later animated film as “Spirited Away”.)

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