5/4/23 (Thurs)
The handsome, buff and gay Kosuke has left a poor and closeted life in the countryside and become a successful fashion consultant in Tokyo, complete with fabulous wardrobe, a gorgeous condo and a close gay circle where he plays the sophisticate. We come to realize that he’s also terribly lonely; having lost his mother at a young age, he yearns for the human touch.
**Spoilers ahead**
The 1936 jidaimono Kochiyama Soshun, given the inexplicable English title of Priest of Darkness, is the second of only three surviving films (out of around two dozen) by the prewar director Yamanaka Sadao. While generally considered the weakest of the three, that’s still a pretty high bar; it’s interestingly one of animator Miyazaki Hayao’s all-time favorites.
The film draws loosely from both the Kochiyama and Naojiro plot strands of the Meiji Era (1881) Kabuki play Kumo ni Magou Ueno no Hatsuhana (The First Flowers of Ueno), one of the all-day extravaganzas by the prolific Kawatake Mokuami. Those stories are usually performed these days as separate plays, but Yamanaka brings them together in an ingenious restructuring of the original. (He did a similar impressive overhaul of another Mokuami work in his next and final film, the supreme Humanity and Paper Balloons.)
British director Matthew White doesn’t let the script get in the way of his vision in his Japanese-language version of Pacific Overtures, a co-production between London’s Menier Chocolate Factory and Osaka’s Umeda Arts Theater that debuted in Tokyo a few days ago. He makes his ideas clear in his statement on the show’s website: “At a time when my own country, through Brexit, has opted to isolate itself from its European neighbors, I find it both fascinating and enlightening to investigate a period in recent history when Japan came to the opposite conclusion – that the only sensible option was to engage with the rest of the world to embrace new technologies and to demonstrate that anything the West could do, Japan could do better.”
He doesn’t note that Japan’s decision was forced upon it by the overt threat of military force from the Western powers, resulting in civil war, a wholesale upheaval of society, and the rise of a military regime that led the nation ultimately to disaster. The show’s original ending features a touching twinge of regret for a lost innocence, questioning whether the nation’s choices have been all for the good. The only other Tokyo production of this show some two decades ago, helmed by a Japanese director, enhanced that with a scene alluding to the nation’s unhappy experience in WWII to highlight the high price it has paid for its actions. That’s without mentioning that Japan has managed to engage with the world even with its Westernized ways without compromising its independence. The show seems a strange place to preach the evils of Brexit.
Ozu’s 1936 film was his first talkie, but the sparse dialogue feels almost like an extension of his silent days. Continue reading
One of the prolific Tsuruya Nanboku’s typical madcap stories making its Kabukiza debut. I was mainly interested in seeing Kataoka Nizaemon, a National Living Treasure, in an evil role, where he’s pretty much unequaled on the Kabuki stage.
It’s as impossible to sum up the full story as it was to follow it, with its huge cast of characters, interlocking stories, and numerous twists and turns, not to mention the double-casting of key roles. The Kameyama vendetta is a famous example of the genre (though not one of the Three Great Vendettas as the program claims), and that story lies at the heart of this complex play. Basically, the evil Mizuemon has killed a man in a surprise attack, then poisons the man’s brother in a cowardly trick without fighting the official vendetta honorably. Their adopted brother then vows to avenge their death.
Ozu veers into Mizoguchi territory in this 1948 film in a Waterloo Bridge-type story of a wartime returnee who learns to his shock that his poverty-stricken wife had turned to prostitution. Continue reading
If Sergio Leone had made a yakuza flick, it would probably look a lot like Nomura Takashi’s fine A Colt Is My Passport, including its no-talk-all-action star Shishido Joe in the Clint Eastwood role, the final shootout in a deserted landscape, and Ibe Harumi’s superb Morricone-like score. (The film was released a year after the completion of Leone’s Dollars Trilogy.) It also borrows a moment from Hawks’ Rio Bravo when Joe’s erstwhile companion, played by half-British pop singer Jerry Fujio, is handed a guitar that just happens to be sitting there (“It’s been a while. Sing something”) and croons a ballad. Itami Juzo’s 1980s comedy Tampopo is famous as a takeoff on a spaghetti Western, but this film beat that by two decades, though as homage rather than parody. Others have noted touches of the French New Wave in the detailed way that Joe puts together his weapon for the initial kill and later carefully builds the bomb for the climactic scene.
Still, the creative and confident way these elements are used gives the film a vibe all its own. Continue reading
1/1/23 (Sun)
The Edo government, aiming to make peace with rival forces in Kyoto, hires a local ronin (unemployed samurai) for protection as its representatives travel to forge an agreement. The ronin agrees to help but turns on the government once in Kyoto. He is subsequently assassinated for his betrayal.
That’s the simple version of the story underlying Shinoda Masahiro’s ever-shifting 1964 kaleidoscope of a biography of Kiyokawa Hachiro, the two-timing ronin who played a minor role in Japanese history. Continue reading
10/27/22 (Thurs), Barbican
You have to be brave to take on a piece as beloved as this 1988 film, one of the most famous of all Japanese anime. I wonder if the Japanese creators preferred a foreign production so as to avoid dealing with overheated domestic expectations. The Tokyo production of Spirited Away was spectacular but simply put the movie on stage (think Beauty and the Beast), and the question here is whether Totoro would take a more theatrical approach (think The Lion King).
The results were magical. Continue reading
11/26/22 (Sun)
Ishikawa Kei’s multi-tiered exploration of identity. Rie (Ando Sakura), traumatized after losing her youngest child and divorcing her husband, has moved back with her small son to her hometown in Kyushu, where she works in the family’s stationery store. She comes to know a shy young customer named Daisuke (Kubota Masataka), who gradually opens up to her after showing her his sketches. Now working as a lumberjack, Daisuke tells her that he comes from a family that runs a well known inn in Ikaho Hot Springs (great place) not far from Tokyo. They fall in love, marry and have a child of their own, and he proves a wonderful husband and father. Some time later, however, tragedy strikes when Daisuke is killed in a work accident. That shock hardly prepares Rie for the next one: at his memorial service a year later, she is visited by Daisuke’s older brother, who upon seeing the dead man’s photo on the altar, reveals that the person in the photo is not in fact Daisuke – that is, Rie’s late husband was not who he pretended to be. Rie, stunned, asks her lawyer, Kido (Tsumabuki Satoshi), to find out just who it was she married.
10/3/22 (Mon)
This 1997 stage adaptation was written specifically for this theater, an outdoor venue in a small town on Noto Peninsula that was built for screen legend Nakadai Tatsuya and his Mumeijuku theater group. The group has been performing there for years, concentrating primarily on Western classics. Miyazaki Kyoko, Nakadai’s late wife, seems to have based the play less on the original novel than on her screenplays for the film and subsequent television version. The stage show proved to be her final work. The film, a small masterpiece, largely takes place in or around a tavern, so a stage version made sense on paper. I was eager to see what they had done with it, especially with Nakadai revisiting his old film in a new role.
Nakadai, who will be 90 next month, is ageless. His voice carries to the back of the theater with no strain or mannerisms, and his acting remains powerful. He has shifted from his film role of the heartless smuggler Sadashichi to the equally important role of the tavern keeper, who seems somewhat more prominent here. Much older than everyone else on stage, he brings gravitas to the role in a natural performance. Though celebrating his 70th anniversary in show business, he remains in full command of his powers. It is an impressive performance regardless of his age.
Which is a good thing, because no one else on stage is remotely in that category. Continue reading
10/1/22 (Sat)
I figured this show would be impossible to stage in Japan since it has a female lead, which by itself makes most musicals a losing proposition here, and one at that who can sing, dance and dominate the show. What I didn’t count on was Watanabe Naomi, a highly likeable plus-sized comedienne who made her mark imitating dancing stars like Beyoncé. She is the only face on the poster for the show – the first time I can ever remember that for a big musical, which would usually put as many faces on the poster as possible whether relevant or not in order to sell even one extra ticket to the performers’ fans. So a lot was riding on her shoulders. This is her first stage show, meaning she’s going to be very physically tested over the multi-month run.
Happily she lived up to her billing and then some. Continue reading
sekenbanashi 