Samurai cinema

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While earlier samurai period pieces were more dramatic rather than action-based, samurai movies post World War II have become more action-based, with darker and more violent characters. Post-war Samurai epics tended to portray psychologically or physically scarred warriors.[1] Akira Kurosawa, Japan's most famous director, stylised and exaggerated death and violence in samurai epics. His Samurai, and many other portrayed in film were solitary figures, more often concerned with concealing their martial abilities, rather than bragging of them.[1]

In Japan, the term chanbara (チャンバラ?), also commonly spelled "chambara", is used for this genre, literally "Sword fighting" movies,[2] roughly equating to western swashbuckler films. Chanbara is a sub category of jidaigeki, which equates to period drama. Jidaigeki may refer to a story set in an historical period, though not necessarily dealing with a samurai character or depicting swordplay.

Historically, the genre is usually set during the Tokugawa era (1600-1868), the samurai film focuses on the end of an entire way of life for the Samurai, many of the films deal with masterless ronin, or samurai dealing with changes to their status resulting from a changing society.

Samurai films were constantly made into the early 1970s, but by then, overexposure on television, the aging of the big stars of the genre, and the continued decline of the mainstream Japanese film industry put a halt to the most of the production of this often startlingly original, artistic genre.[3]

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[edit] Samurai film directors

Akira Kurosawa is the best known to western audiences, and similarly has directed the samurai films best known in the West. He directed Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Throne of Blood, Yojimbo and many others. He had a long association with Toshirō Mifune arguably Japan's most famous actor. Mifune himself had a production company that produced Samurai epics, often with him starring . Two of Kurosawa's samurai movies were based on the works of William Shakespeare, Throne of Blood (Macbeth) and Ran (King Lear). A number of his films were re made by Italy and the United States as westerns, or as action films set in other contexts.[4] His film, Seven Samurai is one of the most important touchstones of the genre and the most well-known outside of Japan. It also illustrates some of the conventions of samurai film in that the main characters are ronin, masterless unemployed samurai, free to act as their conscience dictates. Importantly, these men tend to deal with their problems with their swords and are very skilled at doing so. It also shows the helplessness of the peasantry and the distinction between the two classes.

Masaki Kobayashi directed the films Harakiri and Samurai Rebellion, both cynical films based on flawed loyalty to the clan.

Kihachi Okamoto films focus on violence in a particular fashion. In particular in his films Samurai Assassin, Kill! and Sword of Doom. The latter is particularly violent, the main character engaging in combat for a lengthy 7 minutes of film at the end of the movie. His characters are often estranged from their environments, and their violence is a flawed reaction to this.[4]

Gosha Hideo, and many of his films helped create the archetype of the samurai outlaw. Gosha's films are as important as Kurosawa's in terms of their influence, visual style and content, yet are not as well known in the West. Gosha's films often portrayed the struggle between traditional and modernist thought and were decidedly anti-feudal.

An excellent example of the kind of immediacy and action evident in the best genre is seen Gosha's first film, the Three Outlaw Samurai based on a television series. Three farmers kidnap the daughter of the local magistrate in order to call attention to the starvation of local peasants, a ronin appears and decides to help them. In the process, two other ronin with shifting allegiances join the drama, the conflict widens, eventually leading to betrayal, assassination and battles between armies of mercenary ronin.[5]

[edit] Popular characters in Samurai films

[edit] Zatoichi

At least 26 films were made about the blind swordsman, Zatoichi. A burly masseur with short hair, he is a skilled swordsman who fights using only his hearing. While less known in the West, he is arguably the most famous chanbara character in Japan.

[edit] Crimson Bat

Four movies were made about another blind samurai, the Crimson Bat. Her character was a blind female sword fighter, and made in response to the huge success of Zatoichi .

[edit] Kyoshiro Nemuri

This character was a wandering warrior plagued by the fact that he was fathered in less than honorable circumstance by a Portuguese priest and a Japanese mother.

[edit] Miyamoto Musashi

A number of films were also made about Miyamoto Musashi, a famed historical warrior and swordsman, including a three movie trilogy about his life, starring Toshirō Mifune.

[edit] Lone Wolf and Cub

Lone Wolf and Cub, the tale of a Samurai traveling Japan with his son in a pram (which is armed and on occasion used in combat) was made into a series of six movies known as The Baby Cart Series. The films, in chronological order, are: Sword of Vengeance, Baby Cart at the River Styx, Baby Cart to Hades, Baby Cart in Peril, Baby Cart in the Land of Demons, and White Heaven in Hell. The entire series has been dubbed, re-scored, re-edited and released in the West as the Shogun Assassin DVD series. The English dubbed version of the final Baby Cart film will be available in July of 2008. [6]

[edit] Sanjuro/The Samurai/The Ronin with No Name

Sanjuro is the wandering ronin character appearing in two of Kurosawa's films, Yojimbo and Sanjuro. The character is nameless, but when required gives the name Sanjuro (which actually means "thirtieth son"), and then makes up a surname. Another nameless wandering ronin called Yojimbo ("Bodyguard") in Incident at Blood Pass is also basically the same character. He also appears in the Zatoichi film Zatoichi meets Yojimbo (1970).

The character is sometimes referred to as "the ronin with no name", as a reference to Clint Eastwood's character "the man with no name", a western version inspired by the samurai character.

As was the case with Eastwood, some of the other roles that Toshirō Mifune played after the two Kurosawa movies are basically the same character.

[edit] Themes

There are a number of themes that occur in Samurai film plots. Many feature roaming masterless samurai, seeking work or a place in society. Others are period historical tales of true characters. Others show tales of clan loyalty.[4]

[edit] Influence on western cinema

A number of western movies have re-told the samurai movie in a Western context. Italian director Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars is a remake of Yojimbo, and Clint Eastwood's "man with no name character" was modeled to some degree on Mifune's wandering ronin character that appeared in so many of his films. The Hidden Fortress influenced George Lucas when he made Star Wars. Seven Samurai has been remade as a Western and a science fiction context film, The Magnificent Seven and Battle Beyond the Stars. Other Samurai influenced western movies include Charles Bronson and Toshirō Mifune in Red Sun (1971), David Mamet's Ronin (with Jean Reno and Robert De Niro), Six-String Samurai (1998) and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999).[7] The Zatoichi character was re-made as Blind Fury in the United States, starring Rutger Hauer as a blind swordsman living in the modern US. Most recently, The Last Samurai, the story being loosely based on the true historical French officer Jules Brunet assisting Japanese Samurai in rebellion against the Emperor.

[edit] List of notable Samurai films

  • 1949 Jakoman and Tetsu - directed by Senkichi Taniguchi
  • 1950 Rashomon - directed by Akira Kurosawa
  • 1951 Conclusion of Kojiro Sasaki-Duel at Ganryu Island directed by Hiroshi Inagaki - This was the first, but not the last, time that Toshiro Mifune played Musashi Miyamoto
  • 1952 Vendetta for a Samurai - directed by Kazuo Mori
  • 1954 Seven Samurai - directed by Akira Kurosawa
  • 1954-56 Samurai Trilogy - directed by Hiroshi Inagaki
  • 1957 Throne of Blood aka Spider Web Castle - directed by Akira Kurosawa
  • 1958 The Hidden Fortress - directed by Akira Kurosawa
  • 1959 Samurai Saga - directed by Hiroshi Inagaki
  • 1960 The Gambling Samurai - directed by Senkichi Taniguchi
  • 1961 Yojimbo aka The Bodyguard - directed by Akira Kurosawa
  • 1962 Chushingura - directed by Hiroshi Inagaki
  • 1962 Harakiri - directed by Masaki Kobayashi Won a prize at the Cannes Film Festival
  • 1964 Three Outlaw Samurai
  • 1965 Samurai Assassin aka Samurai - directed by Kihachi Okamoto
  • 1965 Sanshiro Sugata - directed by Seiichiro Uchikiro - this is a remake of Kurosawa's films Sanshiro Sugata and Sanshiro Sugata part 2
  • 1966 The Sword of Doom - directed by Kihachi Okamoto
  • 1966 The Adventure of Kigan Castle - directed by Senkichi Taniguchi
  • 1967 Samurai Rebellion - directed by Masaki Kobayashi Rebellion won the Fipresci Prize at the Venice Film Festival
  • 1969 Samurai Banners - directed by Hiroshi Inagaki
  • 1969 Red Lion - directed by Kihachi Okamoto
  • 1969 Band of Assassins - directed by Tadashi Sawashima
  • 1969 Watch Out Crimson Bat
  • 1970 Mission: Iron Castle
  • 1970 The Ambitious
  • 1970 Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo - directed by Kihachi Okamoto
  • 1970 The Ambitious - directed by Daisuke Ito
  • 1970 Incident at Blood Pass - directed by Hiroshi Inigaki
  • 1977 Intrigue of the Yagyu Clan - directed by Kinji Fukasaku
  • 1979 The 47 Ronin - directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
  • 1981 The Bushido Blade - directed by Tsugunobu Kotani
  • 1984 Legend of the Eight Samurai
  • 1988 Zatoichi - Directed, written and starring Shintaru Katsu
  • 2002 Twilight Samurai - directed by Yôji Yamada and nominated for a best foreign film Oscar.
  • 2003 Zatoichi - directed and starring Beat Takeshi and Silver Lion award winner at Venice Film Festival

[edit] Actors

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Silver (1977), p. 37.
  2. ^ Hill (2002).
  3. ^ Japan: A New Wave.
  4. ^ a b c Silver (1977), p. 44.
  5. ^ White, p. 1.
  6. ^ Silver (1977), p. 185.
  7. ^ White, p. 2.

[edit] References

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