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How to Enjoy a SAMURAI Motion PictureBy Dr. Gordon Warner
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| A duel. With a background of suspense, brutal action, skillful swordsplay, and sudden death, the long-awaited samurai move "Harakiri" by Shockiku Productions, with masterful portrayal by Tatsuya Nakadai and superb direction by Masaki Kobayashi, is now being seen on American screen. | The lure of Feudal Papan with its unforgettable samurai still exist in the minds of many. Through the medium of chanbara, we can still relive and even project ourselves into the excitement and adventures of days gone by.
During my past year in Japan I enjoyed as many chanbara or samurai motion pictures as I could cram into my busy schedule. However, I was really quite surprised at the change that seems to be developing in the various films now being produced. The impact of the great change that was underway in the Japanese motion picture world came quite forcibly to the front with such realistic pictures as Tsubaki Sanjiro and the recent thriller Hara Kiri. Technically, as kengeki films, both have an excellent award winning individual story plot. Both smash hits for those who want to live in a cold sweat before a blood bath.
 The change which I noted with the preview screening of Hara Kiri was of course the stark realism present today. The chanbara motion picture has come of age. The early nationalistic attempts at making a chanbara motion picture cannot be compared with today's color and sound with the tremendous advancement in shooting and cutting techniques. In the early films, the sword technique leaves much to be desired.
The one classical film which provides the audience with all of the thrills and yet keeps to the traditional story is the old standby "The 47 Ronin." The film has now become an annual classic with each motion picture studio bringing out every star for a specific role. Even Toshiro Mifune had a specific part that he secretly wanted to play in a recent Chushingura film. That is how the story touches all Japanese.
There has now developed four kinds of chanbara motion pictures. Two of the four will be discussed fully in this discussion. The historical samurai motion picture cannot be classified as a chanbara motion picture, nor can the fictional story of a famous Ronin he classified in the meaning of the word chanbara. The two types of films which are left, the musical chanbara and the mystical-childish prattle would seem to leave much to be desired. To review the musical and the childish chanbara one need only to think of the audience which seems to pay for such outrageous space films. There is nothing whatsoever connected with the ancient historical past.
The musical chanbara does have its place as an entertainment medium. One of the very best examples are the stories of the gamblers during the Edo period. There were many famous stories about them and their songs make one have a feeling for their difficult life.
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| Director Kurosawa instruct riders on movie set, "The Hidden Fortress." |
There is a specific sword technique in the bad man versus the good man gambler plots. The western audience has had little information so that they can distinguish between the samurai and the gambler. After all they do wear swords in the same way to the untrained eye or the novice of a chanbara motion picture.
It is interesting to note that the kengeki or sword technique in the recent gambler motion pictures has changed for the better. Yet, one is led to believe that such action is that of a samurai. However, there was a martial arts code, although not within the printed page, which was adhered to by almost everyone. These stories are about feudal Japan and the structure of the society is clearly illustrated in some films which would do justice to a good course in Japanese history.
If Japan is interested in educating her youth there is an excellent medium available, with an historical background ready-made. The gambler chanbara could be utilized to show that perhaps the bad can sleep well, but the good sleep and live much happier and better. One need only to observe the youth of America who first find out about cowboy films. From that moment onward for many fast draw of the good will win over the bad. So will the skill with the long sword in the hands of the good win over the bad. But there is actually a realism brought into Japanese films since their beginning which only recently has entered the American film. The good suffer too and even die. This philosophy was withheld by American producers who believed that the American desired to see the good rise over the bad without a scratch- never did the good fellow die in the final scene.
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| Toshiro Mifune practices his sword from meticulously in order to gives realistic and authentic portrayal of a samurai era. Such practice resulted in lightening and suspenseful climax for Toho's "Yojimbo." |
It is regrettable that the Japanese motion picture industry is apparently not interested in tapping its vast resource of potential theater patrons, the children and senior citizens. Through the use of good techniques which are available the stories could be made alive for the children and not too adultish. The interest would be there for the grandparents who like to live a bit in the past. Both could be drawn into the theater because of a desire to be entertained and not bored by foolish even utterly stupid movements before their intelligent eyes.
In a recently advertised "samurai film" the actors took to swings in a park singing about the moon coming over the mountains! It was sickening! Even the two small children sitting next to me with their grandparents asked if they could go for a bag of popcorn because the picture "isn't good, grandma."
The Japanese motion picture producer must realize that it has been basically this point, a true and proven fact, that has driven the American audience out of the theater. There is no one with an ounce of pride in motion pictures who does not weep when they see the vast number of empty motion picture theaters in America and realize that they are being added to everyday. A motion picture must be a challenge to the mind. When the patron begins to realize that he is as intelligent as the brightest in the picture, then the story is lost and so is the theater.
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| A swordplay begins in Shochiku's "Harakiri." Harakiri is a privilege reserved for a samurai to redeem himself through suicide (self-disembowelment). |
Now is the time for the Japanese motion picture industry to aid in the real development of the minds of the Japanese youth and the interest of foreign audiences. Ask anyone in South America why Tsubaki Sanjiro and Harikiri were quickly booked when the first preview ended. The answer is elementary. Both of the pictures made the audience (1) think and live with the hero in his part, (2) feel that what they saw was real, (3) return home tired yet keyed up to an awakening of the world around themselves.
Japanese motion picture critics, who are well aware of what has happened to the world motion picture audience as well as the death of American theater audience, have been writing for years, in reviews about the foolish American idea that the "theater audience is made up of people with the minds of little children so give them a child's view of the world." This approach now appears to be entering the films of Japan to some degree. What a great tragedy if this continues throughout the Japanese motion picture industry.
The motion picture has a responsibility to teach a moral concept in each of its stories. The script writers have a moral responsibility to bring out the whole part of mankind. The newest books on Japanese shelf today such as "Sengokei Buke jiten", "Edo Sekatsu jiten" and "Nippon Buge Shoden" give the readers the insight into the feudal experiences of the people, the society and the nation.
It is this responsibility that the Japanese critics have been mustering in many of their reviews. The film has a responsibility to teach some facet of Japanese history to the people. Of course, realism has its place in the film. There also must be an ethical approach to the climax of the story. Japan has a proud past during feudal times and it is this good that should be brought out so that the youth of Japan may attach their hopes to a solid foundation and be proud that they are Japanese.
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| Shochiku's Tetsuro Tanba (a holder of 3rd Degree, Sandan, in Kendo) stars as a ronin (a masterless samurai.) |
The modern, theater audience is living near the life and death world of true realism. The individual reads about such a life and discusses it with friends. The medium of the motion picture, no mater what the plot of the story may convey, must give beneath all of the coating a solid theme of the loyalty, goodness, the understanding that comes from appreciation, the humanism of life. The hero should be in the form of a symbol which the audience can understand and appreciate within their own experience. No thinking person really enjoys paying his hard earned money for something which does not give him something in return. The audience doesn't mind being fooled on the surface, if there is beneath an awareness of the real flow of life in the story. In even the poorest musical, a weak story of a gambler, a sordid samurai story, there must always be some line of Bushido, a way or ethics of life, running through the entire film.
Youth can be impressed with the manners, effectively brought out in their full manifestation, as a grace or a thing of beauty. Manly, yet gentle will have a real meaning for the term "habitual deportment" which is always shouted to children. The action can be understood no matter how trite some life experience of each character unfolds on the screen.
There is much more to a feudal epic film than just the extracting of a story from "Gro Rin Sho" which has a deep philosophy entwined with the world of the samurai or the vastness of Japanese folklore. There is a black and white print of "Satome Hakenden No Samurai" which still poaches on the fantasy, yet enjoying the very realistic life and death struggle of the people. As a film story it has long been a source of enjoyment with young and old. There is much that can be said for the swordsmanship in the film. The actors move their hips when they cut with the long sword. The tsuba (the guard on the hilt of the sword) is not choked by the right hand as the move is made to draw the blade. The fingers are not used to return the blade to the "soya" (seaboard) after the encounter. There is an air of realism in the film, yet it is as if one were in the world of "Momotaro San."
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| Akira Kurosawa, world famous Japanese director, is shown giving direction for the death scene with arrows in Toho Productions "The Throne of Blood," a Japanese version of Shakespeare's MacBeth. |
It is the life and death philosophy of the people that is clearly and dramatically drawn out in the old motion picture. A new revision has lost almost all of the tenable features of the old film. What a stirring film it would have been had the plot of the old story which was proven to be a hit had been woven into the new which appeared in color and had a good soundtrack.
One of the most ridiculous changes that have roared into the new samurai films is the modern jazz or hillbilly music as- background. This is one of the most- contemptible additions and insults on Japanese and western senses. Not less than five recent samurai films have driven the audience away because of the great contrast between a chanbara picture and the background music- of all things, a jazz band!
With all of the rich classical music there is really little need to add jazz to a feudal period. Why not develop the kote (harp), shakuhachi (flute made of bamboo), and the shamisen (three-stringed instrument) to go along with the film. How much more value as a film bring Japanese culture to the youth of Japan than that of a foreign nation that has no national music of its own? Develop a pride in the historical feudal times of Japan. There is an awe inspiring greatness that can be obtained through the materials on Japanese historical events. It is the moral responsibility of the writers and artists of Japan's motion picture industry to develop within the consciousness of Japanese youth the living past, a love for things Japanese. As in the isolated case of Toshiro Mifune requesting that he be allowed to carry his "Shikken" or "live" blade in his samurai films. Asked why, he replied, " I feel as if I were really alive and in the feudal time of the part that I am playing in a real life and death struggle." His remark conveys the deep respect that this man has for the feudal parts he plays.
Therefore, it is the responsibility of the Japanese motion picture industry to develop films which will teach a moral story to the Japanese public. There is no other medium which can reach so many people in the world with color, the sound, and the realism of visual and sense appreciation. The greatest educators of the ancient and modern world have realized that some means would have to be developed to teach all of the children the history of their own culture in an interesting manner. Today, through the innocent chanbara films of the life of ancient Japan, and in the Samurai epics, not only is the feudal past given to Japanese audiences but, to foreign audiences too.
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| Kobayashi, one of the top directors with Shochiku is shown on location. |
The position of Japanese feudal life in the minds of the foreigner is truly at stake. Either the appreciation and understanding, which is so vital to both, will be something valued or Japan's history will become the laughing stock of the entire world, due to the spreading of a false impression of Japan through the growing interest of foreigners in chanbara and samurai epics. The Japanese motion picture industry can develop understanding and appreciation with the able leadership of directors Kurosawa of Toho, Kobayashi of Shochiku and many others who are beginning to develop realism with fine historical settings and with the excellent technical understanding supported with historical research which make some Japanese films world award winners!
This scholarly approach is desperately needed at this time. If something is not promptly undertaken, by all members of the Japanese motion picture industry, the feudal life of Japan will be misunderstood, despised, and totally rejected by the foreigner; not to forget the paramount person for whom the film is made . . . the Japanese youth.
We foreigners are expecting more of a Japanese flavor when we see a Japanese chanbara, or a samurai epic. There are more and more blue eyed kenshi who are unfortunately beginning to laugh at the mere suggestion of the term BUSHIDO. There are also those foreigners who have developed a fixed impression of Japanese feudal life due to only one visit to a chanbara motion picture.
The time is current to do something to build a better understanding of Japan's feudal life and the very philosophy of contemporary Japan. Therefore, to those who are sincerely interested and wish to build a justifiable international appreciation and understanding for Japan, I extend my hand in deep and humble appreciation. To those who look only to the material side of life I extend to them my "Hata shijo" (a letter of challenge)—just name the place, the temple, the time and bring your second. Oh yes, please do not forget an obento (box lunch)
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