MS5039
World
Cinema
Week 4
Japanese Samurai Films
• [Link]
n-sunday/one-way-or-another
Australian Cinema Questions
• How was Australia and its history represented in My Brilliant Career?
• How was Armstrong using the period setting to comment on Australia
in 1979 (especially in relation to gender and feminism)
• How did the film conform and not conform to conventions of the
period/costume drama?
Japanese History
• The Meiji Restoration (1868-1912)
• Expansion of Empire – military and imperialism
• Sino-Japanese War (1894-5); Russo-Japanese War (1904-5); Manchurian
Incident (1931); 2nd Sino-Japanese War (1937)
• WWII
• alliance with Italy and Germany (1940); bombing of Pearl Harbour (1941);
atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945)
• US Occupation (1945-1952)
• Demilitarisation and democratisation; colonies granted independence; new
constitution; censorship and restrictions on the film industry
• Economic boom
Japanese Cinema Genres
• Japan had a studio system: Toho, Dahei, Shochiku, Nikkatsu and Toei (a “Big
5” just like Hollywood)
• Presentation rather than representation
• 1950s – The “Golden Age” of Japanese cinema
[Link]
• Jidai-geki (period drama)
• Example: Roshomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950) 11:30
• Chanbara (samurai film) – sub-genre of the jidai-geki
• Gendai-geki (contemporary drama)
• Examples: the films of Yasujiro Ozu, women-focused melodramas of Mikio Naruse;
Koibumi/Love Letter (Kinuyo Tanaka, 1953) [Link]
• Also known as shomin-geki (common person drama)
• Kaiju – giant monsters
• Examples: Gojira/Godzilla (Ishirō Honda, 1954)
Chanbara Films
• Sword fighting films – early form of
action cinema
• Feudal Japan – mostly set during the
Edo period (1603-1867)
• Code of bushido
• The giri/ninjo conflict
• Ronin – masterless samurai
• International influence – “Japanese
Westerns”
Shichinin no
samurai/Seven
Samurai (Akira
Kurosawa, 1954)
• Takes place in 1586 in the
Sengoku period, a time of
many civil wars and social
upheavals
• Different types of samurai –
shows that some samurai
have become dishonourable,
but the seven are united in
their honour, despite
differences in background
• Huge battle scenes –
multiple cameras, telephoto
lenses
• Very influential
• Big budget, early colour film
Samurai Trilogy • Stars Toshiro Mifune, also a star in many Kurosawa films
(Hiroshi Inagaki, • Based on the real figure Musashi Miyamoto, known as a master
1954-56) swordsman, author, philosopher, artist
• Lack of graphic violence
Seppuku/Harakiri (Masaki
Kobayashi, 1962)
• Exposes the honour of the samurai as a façade – an “anti-
samurai” film?
• Kobayashi: “All of my pictures… are concerned with
resisting an entrenched power.”
• About political hypocrisy – set in 1630 but there is
commentary on modern Japan
• Non-linear storyline
• [Link]
rd2
24:12
Contemporary takes on the genre
• Gohatto/Taboo (Nagisa Oshima, 1999) – gay love story
• Tasogare Seibei/The Twilight Samurai (Yōji Yamada, 2002) – realist
drama
• Zatoichi (2003)– reinterpretation by Takeshi Kitano
• Remakes of Harakiri (2011) and 13 Assassins (2010) by Takashi Miike
• Rurouni Kenshin – Manga series; live action film made in 2012
• [Link]
-far/#39-versus-39-2000
Yojimbo (Akira Kurosawa,
1961)
• Set in 1860, final years of Edo period
• Ronin as ambiguous hero – “Ronin with no name”
• Inspired by the works of American crime writer
Dashiell Hammett
• Blend of samurai, Western, noir and comedy genres
• Critique of capitalism and the Cold War (two sides
facing off – USA & USSR – with Japan in the middle)
• Sequel Sanjuro (Akira Kurosawa, 1962); Zatoichi
Meets Yojimbo (Kihachi Okamoto, 1970)
• Remade as A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964)
and Last Man Standing (Walter Hill, 1996)
ESSAY QUESTION
• Select one of the samurai films listed in the module guide’s
filmography and discuss whether it addresses, or not, issues of
national history and identity, and if so, how it does this within a
genre context.
