Puppet Theatre Romance of the Three Kingdoms (人形劇 三国志, 1982-1984)

Puppet Theatre Romance of the Three Kingdoms

(人形劇 三国志 / Ningyōgeki Sangokushi, 1982-4, 45’ x 68話, TV)

Introduction

Luo Guanzhong’s 14^th century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, known in Japan as Sangokushi, is often compared to Shakespeare when scholars describe the literary impact that it has had on East Asian culture.  At 120 chapters, it is an epic tale featuring almost a thousand characters – the majority of whom are historical figures from the final years of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220AD) and Three Kingdoms (220-280AD) periods.  The Three Kingdoms period was one of the bloodiest in Chinese History and the novel is filled with intrigues, rebellions, and warfare. 

The tale has been adapted countless times in a variety of forms from manhua (Chinese comics) and manga to animation, from video games to epic films such as John Woo's spectacular Red Cliff (2010).  One adaptation not so well known in the west, but culturally significant in Japan is the NHK’s epic two-year series Puppet Theatre Romance of the Three Kingdoms (人形劇 三国志 / Ningyōgeki: Sangokushi, 1982-4).   The puppets were designed and made by Kihachirō Kawamoto, the legendary puppet animator who passed away in 2010, assisted by his team of puppet artisans.  Outside of Japan, Kawamoto is famous for his stop motion films, but inside Japan he is known for the puppets he made for Sangokushi and the Historical Doll Spectacular: The Story of Heike (人形歴史スペクタル平家物語/Ningyō Rekishi Supekutakuru: Heike Monogatari, 1993-4).  

Very little has been written about these two series in English or other European languages because of their lack of availability.  I have been wanting to watch the series for a long time but have been hindered by the fact that I am not in Japan and the DVDs are expensive – 17 DVDs (JP only, no subs) released in 2002 with a list price of ¥5,040 apiece.  The series is now available on NHK on Demand, but unfortunately this is region blocked.  Last year, I discovered that a close family friend is also a fan of Sangokushi and he generously gave us a copy of the complete series. Starting the 1^st of December, my husband – aka my portable English-German-Japanese dictionary – and I have pledged to watch an episode a week for the next 68 weeks so that I can review the entire series for Nishikata Film.  Along the way, I will share tidbits that we have picked up from books and articles about Kawamoto and the making of the series. 

Order: Ningyou geki Sangokushi zenshuu 1

Challenges

There are a number of challenges to reviewing this series.  The main one has to do with the names of the characters.  The novel The Romance of Three Kingdoms is based on historical events and figures as well as myths about this era gleaned from oral traditions.  The historical figures usually have at least two names: their given name and their style name (aka courtesy name / 字 / zi), which is a name bestowed upon a person at adulthood in addition to their given name.  The English translations of the novel use the standard Pinyin (official phonetic system for transcribing Chinese characters into Latin script) names, but these are often very different from the common Japanese names for these characters.  I have put together a complete character guide which I will be updating /correcting throughout the series.  At the beginning of each episode review I will identify the key figures appearing in that episode with their names in kanji, and hiragana, and English (i.e. as they appear in Charles Henry Brewitt-Taylor’s translation of Luo Guanzhong’s The Romance of Three Kingdoms which I will also be referring to throughout the series). 

Principal Crew

At the moment I only have the names of the key crew members who worked on this epic production.  I am in the process of tracking down the names of the puppet artisans who worked with Kawamoto and the puppeteers who worked under the NHK’s top puppeteer Mariko Itoh.  The dramatic incidental music was composed in-house by Yoshirō Kuwabara on many dramas from the early 60s to the mid-90s.  Sangokushi’s famous theme music was composed by the legendary musician Haruomi “Harry” Hosono, a key member of the bands Happy End and the Yellow Magic Orchestra (with Yukihiro Takahashi and Ryuichi Sakamoto).  A bit of interesting trivia: Harry Hosono is the grandson of Masabumi Hosono, the only Japanese passenger on the Titanic when it sank.  His tale of survival and unnecessary public shaming by the media is a fascinating clash/muddle of Western and Japanese cultural expectations/prejudices and well worth looking into if you’re not familiar with his story.

Direction:

Kazuya Satō (佐藤和哉)

Kō Koyama (小山攻)

Screenplay adaptation:

Ei Ogawa (小川英, 1930-94)

Yasuo Tanami (田波靖男, 1933-2000)

Mitsuo Aimono (四十物光男, b. 1946)

Theme Music:

Haruomi Hosono (細野晴臣, b. 1947)

Music:

Yoshirō Kuwabara (桑原研郎, 1934-2007)

Puppet Design:

Kihachirō Kawamoto (川本喜八郎, 1925-2010)

Head Puppeteer:

Mariko Itoh (伊東万里子)

Presenters:

Shinsuke Shimada (島田紳助, b.1956)

Ryūsuke Matsumoto (松本竜助, 1956-2006)

Principal Cast

The performances were done by puppeteers on elaborate sets who stood underneath the large rod puppets and manipulated their movements (eyes, hands, etc.) using rods.  The voices were done by established seiyū (voice actors).  As there are hundreds of characters in the story, the seiyū did multiple characters.  Below, I have listed only the main characters that they played in the series.  Most of the actors voiced other more minor roles.  The female seiyū also do the voices of children and youths – with some of the youths growing into adulthood and being taken over by male seiyū.  I have been having trouble finding the furigana for the names of many of the female characters.  I will fill in / correct names as they appear in the series and I either see how they give the name in furigana onscreen or how they are called by other characters.

Character names are given English / Chinese / Japanese followed by the style name if I came across it.  Character descriptions are based upon wikipedia pages of the real historical figures.  All characters are historical figures unless noted otherwise.  For more information see the List of fictional people of the Three Kingdoms and the List of people in the Three Kingdoms.

Hayato Tani  谷隼人 (b.1946)

• Liu Bei / 玄徳 / りゅうび, style name Xuande /玄徳/げんとく, warlord; founder and first ruler of the state of Shu Han
• Dian Wei / 典韋 / てんい, military officer serving under the warlord Cao Cao, famed for his enormous strength
• Cheng Yu / 程昱 / ていいく, strategist of the warlord Cao Cao
• Ma Dai / 馬岱 / ばたい, military general of the state of Shu Han
• Ma Su / 馬謖ほか / ばしょく, military general and strategist of the state of Shu Han

Renji Ishibashi  石橋蓮司 (b.1941)

• Guan Yu / 関羽 / がんう, general serving under the warlord Liu Bei
• Zhang Jue / 張角 / ちょうかく, leader of the Yellow Turban rebels, said to be a follower of Taoism and a sorcerer
• Yuan Shao / 袁紹 / えんしょう, style name Benchu/本初/ほんしょ, warlord
• Liu Biao / 劉表 / りゅうひょう, style name Jingsheng/景升/けいしょう, warlord and governor of Jing Province
• Ma Teng / 馬騰 / ばとう, style name Shoucheng/寿成, warlord
• Zhuge Jin / 諸葛瑾 / しょかつきん, official of the state of Eastern Wu
• Ma Liang / 馬良 / ばりょう, style name Jichang/季常, official serving under the warlord Liu Bei, served briefly in the state of Shu Han
• Sima Yi /司馬懿 / しばいaka Zhongda / 仲達 / ちゅうたつ, general and politician in the state of Cao Wei
• Jiang Wei / 姜維 / きょうい, style name Boyue/伯約/はくやく, general and regent of the state of Shu Han; originally served Shu’s rival state Cao Wei as a mid-level military officer but defected 

Mitsuo Senda  せんだみつお (b.1947)

• Zhang Fei / 張飛 / ちょうひ, general who served under the warlord Liu Bei
• Xiahou Yuan / 夏侯淵 / かこうえん, general who served under the warlord Cao Cao
• Chen Gong / 陳宮 /ちんきゅう, advisor to the warlord Lü Bu; started his career under Cao Cao before defecting to Lü Bu; was executed when Cao Cao defeated Lü Bu
• Zhang Song / 張松 / ちょうしょう, advisor to the warlord Liu Zhang, plotted to remove Zhang from power and replace him with Liu Bei
• Pang De / 龐徳 / ほうとく, general who served under various factions. In the end he refused to surrender to Guan Yu after his defeat at the Battle of Fancheng and was executed 
• Cheng Pu / 程普 / ていふ, general serving under the warlord Sun Quan
• Meng You / 孟優 / もうゆう , fictional character who first appears in Chapter 88 of the original epic; Meng Huo’s younger brother 
• Xiahou Mao / 夏侯楙 / かこうぼう or かこうも, general and civilian administrator of Cao Wei; second son of Xiahou Dun; given the title "Marquis of the Imperial Domain" (列侯); married to Cao Cao's daughter Princess Qinghe.

Reo Morimoto  森本レオ (b.1943)

• Zhuge Liang / 諸葛亮/ しょかつ, style name Kongming/孔明/こうめい, chancellor of the state of Shu Han; recognized as the greatest strategist of his era 
• Lü Bu / 呂布 / りょふ, style name Fengxian /奉先/ , general and warlord; originally subordinate to minor warlord Ding Yuan, he betrayed and murdered Ding Yuan and defected to warlord Dong Zhuo; then did the same to Dong at the instigation of Wang Yun and others; defeated and driven away by Dong loyalists and wandered central and northern China seeking shelter under various other warlords. . . eventually ended up captured and executed under the orders of Cao Cao
• Gongsun Zan / 公孫瓚 / こうそんさん, style name Bogui / 伯珪, warlord 
• He Jin / 何進 / かしん , style name Suigao/遂高, elder half brother of Empress He; consort to Emperor Ling: shared power with his sister as regents following death of Emperor Ling; struggle with influential eunuch faction led to his assassination
• Xu Chu / 郭嘉 / きょちょ, style name Zhongkang/仲康, general, served as bodyguard to warlord Cao Cao; later continued as general in the state of Cao Wei under Cao Pi
• Zhuge Jin / 許褚 /しょかつきん , style name Ziyu/子瑜, official of the state of Eastern Wu
• Cai Mao / 蔡瑁 /さいぼう , style name Degui/徳珪/, belonged to the gentry of Jing Province; from local influential clan of Nan Commandery; served Jing Province governor Liu Biao; his sister was Liu Biao’s second wife
• Liu Qi / 劉琦 / りゅうき, eldest son of warlord Liu Bao; provided reinforcements and refuge for Liu Bei he was fleeing from Cao Cao's forces after the Battle of Changban; assisted Liu Bei and Zhou Yu following the Battle of Red Cliffs.
• Cao Pi / 曹丕 / そうひ, style name Zihuan/子桓, first emporer of the state of Cao Wei; second son of warlord Cao Cao; eldest son by Cao Cao’s concubine (later wife) Lady Bian
• Lü Meng / 呂蒙 /りょもう, style name Ziming/, general who served first under warlord Sun Ce, then under his successor and younger brother Sun Quan; commended for his bravery but only seen as a “mere warrior” for his lack of education, Lü Meng studied to improve himself and eventually became a learned and competent military leader. 

Nobuto Okamoto  岡本信人 (b.1948)

• Cao Cao / 曹操 / そうそう, style name Mengde/孟德/もうとく, renowned ruler and military genius who is often portrayed as cruel and merciless; warlord and penultimate Chancellor of the Eastern Han Dynasty; central figure of the Three Kingdoms period; laid foundations for what was to become the state of Cao Wei, posthumously honoured as Emporer Wu of Wei
• Dong Zhuo / 董卓 / とうたく, style name Zhongying/仲穎/ちゅうえい, politician and warlord
• Zhou Yu / 周瑜 / しゅうゆ, style name Gongjin/公瑾/こうきん, general and strategist serving under warlord Sun Ce and later Sun Quan
• Lu Xun / 陸遜 / りくそん, style name Boyan/伯言/はくげん, general and politician in the State of Eastern Wu
• Yi Ji / 伊籍 /いせき , style name Jibo/機伯, official serving in the state of Shu Han; served under the warlord Liu Biao in the late Eastern Han Dynasty before coming to serve Liu Bei, the founding emperor of Shu.
• Wei Yan / 魏延 / ぎえん, style name Wenchang/文长/文長, general in the state of Shu Han; began career as a foot soldier for Liu Bei and rose through the ranks; became a general when Liu Bei invaded Yi Province (modern-day Sichuan and Chongqing)
• Guan Ping / 関平 / かんべい, general under warlord Liu Bei; eldest son of Guan Yu
• Cao Rui/ 曹叡 /そうえい, style name Yuanzhong/元仲, second emperor of the state of Cao Wei; his parentage is a matter of dispute

Hiroko Isayama   伊佐山ひろ子 (b.1952)

• Mei Fan, Wife of Zhang Fei / 美芳（張飛の妻）/みいふあん 
• Mother of Liu Bei / 玄徳の母 
• Diaochan / 貂蝉 / , one of the Four Beauties of Ancient China; as there is little evidence of her life, many scholars believe she is a fictional character
• Prince of Hongnong in his youth/ 弁皇子（弘農王、廃帝）, 少帝弁/しょうていべん, also known as Emperor Han Shao (ie Young Emperor), briefly Emperor of China during the Han Dynasty; son of Emperor Ling and Empress He; brother of Emperor Xian of Han; deposed and poisoned by Dong Zhuo
• Lady Wu (mother of Lady Sun) / 呉国太（貞姫の母）, noblewoman of renowned beauty and character, wife of Sun Jian, also mother to Sun Ce, Sun Quan, Sun Yi and Sun Kuang 

 

Naomi Hase(gawa)  長谷直美 (b.1956)

• Sūrin (Wife of Liu Bei) / 淑玲（玄徳の妻）, Liu Bei had at least four wives and many concubines
• Emperor Xian of Han as a youth / 協皇子（陳留王、後の献帝）/ けんてい, last Emperor of the Han Dynasty; son of Emperor Ling and Concubine Wang, brother of Emperor Shao (Prince of Hongnong); placed on throne after Dong Zhuo removed his brother; forced to abdicate in favour of Cao Pi and given the title of Duke of Shanyang
• Guan Ping as a youth/ 勝平（後の関平）/ かんぺい/ , general serving under the warlord Liu Bei; eldest son of Guan Yu

Noboru Matsuhashi  松橋登 (b.1944)

• Sun Quan / 孫権 / そんけん, style name Zhongmou/仲謀, formally known as Emperor Da of Wu; founder of the state of Eastern Wu; ruled from 222-9 as King of Wu, and from 229-52 as Emperor of Wu
• Sun Ce / 孫策 / そんさく, style name Bofu/伯符, known as “Little Conqueror”, general and warlord; oldest child of Sun Jian who was killed at the Battle of Xiangyang when Sun Ce was only 16; broke away from his father’s overlord Yuan Shu to establish his own powerbase in southeastern China; with Zhang Zhao, Zhou Yu and others, he laid down the foundations of the State of Eastern Wu
• Yuan Shu / 袁術 / えんじゅつ/すい, style name Gonglu/公路, warlord how live in the late Eastern Han Dynasty; rose to prominence following the collapse of the imperial court in 189
• Emperor Xian of Han / 献帝 / けんてい, personal name Liu Xie/劉協, style name Bohe/伯和: see description under Naomi Hase(gawa) who played him as a child. 
• Zhao Yun / 趙雲 / ちょううん, style name Zilong/子龍, general who lived in the late Eastern Han Dynasty; participated in the first of Zhuge Liang’s Northern Expeditions
• Ma Chao / 馬超 / ばちょう, style name Mengqi/孟起, general and warlord who lived in the late Eastern Han Dynasty
• Xu You / 許攸 / きょゆう, style name Ziyuan/子遠, strategist under warlord Yuan Shao during the late Han Dynasty; known for his avarice
• Guan Lu / 管輅 / かんろ, style name Gongming/公明, practitioner of divination (a seer) who lived in the late Eastern Han Dynasty
• Liu Shan / 劉禅 / りゅうぜん, style name Gongsi/公嗣, second and last Emperor of Shu Han; ascended the throne at age 16 under the care of the Chancellor Zhuge Liang and Imperial Secretariat Li Yan.
• Cheng Yu / 程昱 / ていいく, style name Zhongde/仲徳/ちゅうとく, major strategist serving warlord Cao Cao; originally named Chen Li, he changed his name to Yu (“lifting of the sun” after dreaming of the sun on the stop of Mt. Tai 
• 

Noburo Mitani  三谷昇 (b.1932)

• Pang Tong / 龐統 / ほうとう, style name Shiyuan/士元/しげん, advisor to the warlord Liu Bei who began his career as a minor official in Nan Commandery in Jing Province (present-day Hubei and Hunan)
• Sun Jian / 孫堅 / そんけん, style name Wentai/文台/ぶんたい, general and warlord who allied himself with Yuan Shu in 190 when warlords from eastern China formed a coalition to oust the tyrannical warlord Dong Zhuo, puppet master of Emperor Xian.
• Wang Yun / 王允 / おういん, Situ (Minister over the Masses) under Emperor Xian 
• Lu Zhi / 盧植 / ろしょく, style name Zigan /子幹, politician, militarist and scholar; famous for being the teacher of Liu Bei and Gongsun Zan.
• ??? / 単福 / , alias in Sangokushi for Xu Shu / 徐庶 / じょしょ, style name Yuanzhi/元直, official of the state of Cao Wei
• Lu Su / 魯粛 /よしゅく , style name Zijing/子敬/しけい , politician, military commander and diplomat serving under warlord Sun Quan
• State Elder Qiao or “Quio Guolao”/ 喬国老 /きょうこくるう name in Sangokushi for Qiao Xuan /橋玄/きょうげん, style name Gongzu/公祖, an official 
• Sima Hui / 司馬徽 / しばき, courtesy name Decao Decao (德操), pseudonym Shuijing (水鏡/"Water Mirror"); a hermit from Yingchuan who lived in northern Ping Province
• Huang Zhong / 黄忠 / こうちゅう, style name Hansheng/漢升, a general serving under the warlord Liu Bei; best known for his victory at the Battle of Mount Dingjun in 219.
• Jia Xu / 賈詡 / かく, style name Wenhe/文和; advisor to the warlord Cao; had served Dong Zhuo, Li Jue and Zhang Xiu before finally joining Cao Cao. During the Three Kingdoms era, he served as an official in the state of Cao Wei under Cao Pi, Cao Cao's son and successor.
• Zuo Ci / 左慈 / さじ, style name Yuanfang/元放, a legendary figure of the late Han Dynasty and Three Kingdoms periods of history; learned his arts from the Taoist sage Feng Heng; mentored Ge Xuan.
• Meng Huo / 孟獲 / もうかく, popularly regarded as a local leader representing the gentries of the Nanzhong region during the Three Kingdoms era.

Miyako Tasaka   田坂都 (b.1952)

• Lady Sun / 貞姫（孫夫人）/ そんふじん , a noblewoman, daughter of Sun Jian, younger sister of the warlords Sun Ce and Sun Quan, third wife of warlord Liu Bei
• Adou/Edou (later became Liu Shan) / 阿斗（後の劉禅）/ りゅうぜん, widely known by his childhood nickname of Adou or Edou; style name Gongsi/公嗣, second and last emperor of Shu Han, ascended the throne at age 16 under the care of the Chancellor Zhuge Liang and Imperial Secretariat Li Yan.
• ??? / 勝平

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2013

Next:  Episode 1: The Oath of the Peach Garden / 桃園の誓い / Tōen no chikai  

Gulliver’s Great Activities (ガリヴァー奮闘記, 1950)

The Fleischer Brothers’ Gulliver’s Travels (ガリバー旅行記), the second feature-length cel animation ever made, was a big success when it premiered just before Christmas in 1939.  Because of the war, it did not reach Japan until 1948 where it is believed to have been the inspiration behind Kindai Eiga-sha’s unusual 1950 animated short Gulliver’s Great Activities (ガリヴァー奮闘記/Gulliver Funtōki, 1950). 

Japanese companies had long before the war already cottoned on to the fact that animation was a great way to promote products.  There were the record talkies which used animation to promote popular music in the 1920s and early 1930s.  One record talkie that I know of, Chameko’s Day (1931), even additionally features Lion Toothpaste product placement.

Gulliver’s Great Activities was funded by the Japan’s National Tax Agency (国税庁) with the aim of promoting the payment of taxes by the general public.  I do not know how widely the film was distributed, nor how successful it was in motivating people to pay their taxes.  From an early 21^st century perspective, the efforts seem pretty ham-fisted and they amuse me greatly.   

With the landscape, town, and character designs, the filmmakers have done a reasonable job of creating an 18^th century European environment.  Almost all adaptations of Gulliver’s Travels play fast and loose with the original plot and settings – the Fleischer Brothers’ film was only very tenuously based on the opening chapter (A Voyage to Lilliput) of the original novel, and Gulliver’s Great Activities seems loosely based on the 1939 animation – an adaptation of an adaptation of sorts.  While Fleischers’ film was definitely marked with their in-house “cartoon”- style, the Kindai Eiga-sha film seems more based on European illustrations and paintings.

That being said, the anachronisms are startling. The first appears in the opening credits. The ship that presumably Gulliver is travelling on when he gets shipwrecked has a prominent iron cross on its sail.  This is indeed surprising because the iron cross has for centuries been the symbol of the German military and its antecedents.  In the original novel, Gulliver sets sail from Bristol with a Captain William Prichard, so it would be much more likely that she ship's sails bore the cross of St. George, if it had a symbol on it at all. 

The next anachronism that I spotted occurs when the townsfolk have been informed that a giant has landed on the beach.  One woman comes to her window brushing her teeth with a toothbrush. Now, Jonathan Swift was indeed obsessed with hygiene and the theme of cleanliness comes up often in Gulliver’s Travels, but not toothbrushing.  The toothbrush, which has been around in various forms since ancient times, did not really take off in England until William Addis invented the modern toothbrush in 1780. 

From here on in, the anachronisms demonstrate that there was no concern for historical accuracy – the anachronism are there in aid of the government propaganda.  Gulliver, it seems, is a metaphor for the ways in which the government -using funds raised by taxes - can aid the community.  After initially tying Gulliver up, a huge storm brings flooding and the Lilliputians decide that this giant could be useful in repairing and preventing flood damage.  They send motorized trucks with goods from the government stores to feed and revive Gulliver.  After building dykes, he then aids big industry (a smelter), followed by trade and commerce.

In his final act of heroism, Gulliver aids in putting out a fire that threatens to burn down the town.  This sequence is particularly amusing because despite all of the anachronistic imagery of modern technology, the town has only a manually operated water pump.  This is just one of several moments in the film designed to provoke laughs from the intended audience – in this case, one of the men gets hosed in the face.  I was laughing for an entirely different reason.

Directors Tokio Kuroda (黒田外喜男) and Shigeyuki Ogawa (小沢重行) have used a mix of cutouts and cel animation, which causes some continuity problems between cuts.  The film looks amateurish compared to the Fleischer Brothers’ Gulliver’s Travels, but then they only have a minuscule staff and much less experience when compared to the more technologically advanced Fleischer Studios.  It is by no means a classic, but I certainly enjoyed watching it.  This film appears on Disc 4 of Digital Meme’s Japanese Anime Classic Collection.

35mm talkie

length: 9’07”

Production Company: Kindai Eiga-sha 近代映画社

Producer: Masao Tsukimura: 月村正雄

Planning: The National Tax Agency 国税庁

Directors: Tokio Kuroda 黒田外喜男 and Shigeyuki Ogawa 小沢重行

Concept by: Shinpei Yamaguchi 山口晋平

Screenplay by: Katsushi Toba 鳥羽克始

Cinematography:  Ichiro Kimura北村一

Dialogue: Theatre Piccolo テアトルビツコロ

Music composed by: Kazuo Kojima小島和夫

Music performed by: Tokyo Symphonic Ensemble 東京シンフォニックアンサンブル

 Catherine Munroe Hotes 2013

The Phantom Ship (幽霊船, 1956)

In September, the Tokyo International Film Festival unveiled digitally restored versions of 3 masterpieces by early anime pioneers Kenzō Masaoka and Noburō Ōfuji:  The Spider and the Tulip (1943), Whale (1952), and The Phantom Ship (幽霊船 / Yuureisen, 1956).  They also screened a newly discovered animated short by Ōfuji: Noroma na jiji (のろまな爺, 1924) – there is not an official English title yet, but I would suggest Foolish Old Man based upon plot descriptions I have read – and a test version of his incomplete final film Princess Kayuga (竹取物語/Taketori Monogatari, 1961).  In 1924 Ōfuji (大藤 信郎, 1900–1961)  had joined Sumikazu Film Studios (スミカズ映画創作社) where he was being mentored by Kōuchi Junichi (幸内純一, 1886-1970).   Noroma na jiji was Ōfuji’s first attempt at animation at Sumikazu.  The film was restored by IMAGICA West who transferred the film to black and white film stock in order to do the restoration, then tinted the film to match the original film (Source:  Kobe-eiga).  The films were introduced by Kōji Yamamura, who discussed the restoration process at the event.

NIPPON NO ART ANIMATION OOFUJI NOBUROU

I am looking forward to seeing these restored and rediscovered classics – particularly Whale and The Phantom Ship.  I have both of these film on the terrific DVD Animation Pioneers: Noburō Ōfuji Lofty Genius (アニメーションの先駆者 大藤信郎 孤高の天才, 2010). Although the transfer from film to DVD is well done, the film image had darkened with age and both films have the usual scratches and flecks that 35mm develop over time.  The films are silhouette animations which use coloured cellophane to add layers and visual interest.  With digital restoration, I imagine that the improved clarity of the coloured cellophane would look stunning.  Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed, 1926), which was a huge influence on Ōfuji, was digitally restored and released on Blu-ray/ DVD in the UK this past August.  Although this film is tinted rather than using coloured cellophane, the colours and detail in the digital restoration are simply spectacular.   

The Phantom Ship (幽霊船 / Yuureisen, 1956), a film both directed and written by Ōfuji, opens with tantalising glimpse at the master at work: Ōfuji’s hands cutting waves out of coloured cellophane.  The opening title sequence is written in English, which suggests that he made the film with his international audience in mind.  His films Taeisei Shakuson (大聖釈尊, 1948) and Whale screened at Cannes in 1952 and 1953 respectively in the official selection for short films.  Ōfuji’s name is Romanised as “Ohfuji” in the opening credits.  The renowned composer and professor of music Kōzaburō Hirai (平井康三郎, 1910-2002) composed the soundtrack.  There is no dialogue or narration in The Phantom Ship; instead, the story is told purely through visuals and music (choir, strings instruments, percussion).   

During the opening credits, the camera rotates over a map of East Asia coming to stop over the Yellow Sea – the northern part of the East China Sea which lies between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula.  After a closer shot of the Yellow Sea, suggesting that this is where the story takes place, the opening sequence fades to black and opens with the parting of two wavelike silhouettes.   We see a rugged seascape which, combined with the low vocalising of the choir creates a feeling of unease.  Then, the shadow of a phantom ship appears.  The ship is a ruin, with its brightly coloured sails in tatters.  It is a ghastly scene.  One crew member hangs from his feet from the ship’s bow.  Another man stands impaled to the mast by a sword.  A pirate symbol seems to have been scrawled upon one of the tattered sails.  After a montage of the corpses, the camera returns to the pirate symbol.  The wordless chorus increases in volume and pitch as the boat magically comes back to life. The sails mend themselves and the crew of noblemen, armed with swords, also magically return to their formal selves.  They thrash their swords and look ready for a fight. 

The scene shifts to a more peaceful ship filled with elegant figures.  Women dance around a smiling figure of a Buddha. Some of the dancing scenes are set against a kaleidoscope of whirling colours.  A sentry walks the deck alert to any trouble.  Just as a pair of lovers look as though they are about to embrace, the phantom ship appears and interrupts their peace. The trouble begins with the shot of a cannon and soon the phantom pirates are invading the peaceful ship attacking both men and women indiscriminately.  Although the peaceful ship seems overwhelmed, they put up a valiant fight, with even the elegantly dressed ladies picking up swords and duelling with the invaders.  The pirates toss people overboard and set the ship alight.  The phantom pirate ship then quietly sails away.

In the next scene snow is falling, then a short montage suggests a shift in time from winter into the spring.  A white phantom ship approaches the pirate phantom ship.  The pirates shoot at it in vain, then shake with fear as the white phantom sailor approaches, his rapier brandished high.  Behind him sits a white lady.  It is the ghosts of the pirates’ noble victims.  The white phantoms now seek their revenge, in a marvelous sequence that uses an experimental technique of overlaying animated swirling lines and other shapes.  There are also overlaid images of white feet stomping on the pirates and hand prints slapping at them.  It is a nightmare sequence complete with images resembling dripping blood.  Even the waves seem determined to grab the pirates and dash them into the sea.  The white phantoms do not rest until the magic is undone and the pirates return to their original state as corpses on a ruin of a pirate ship.   

It is truly a spectacular film, and one of the top animated shorts of 1957.  At the time, there were no established international film festivals for animation – the oldest such festival, Annecy, would get off the ground in 1960.  The Oscars at this time were giving awards to “cartoons” – i.e. it was mainly a competition between Disney, Warner Bros., MGM, and UPA – Norman McLaren famously won an Oscar for Neighbours (1952) in 1953, but it was for Best Documentary Short because pixilation/stop motion techniques did not qualify as “cartoon” (i.e. drawn) animation.  Thus other animation techniques at international festivals like Berlin and Cannes were lumped into vague categories such as “Culture Films and Documentary”.

Many books and articles claim that The Phantom Ship won the “Grand Prix” at the 17^th Venice Film Festival in 1956 which I have always found suspicious because of its wording.  To begin with, the Venice Film Festival’s grand prix is not called “Grand Prix”, but the Golden Lion. Secondly, no Golden Lion was awarded in 1956. Jury members were divided in opinion between Kon Ichikawa’s Harp of Burma and Juan Antonio Bardem’s Calle Mayor and so in the end did not give the award to anyone. The jury president that year was John Grierson (UK) with jury members including André Bazin (France), G.B. Cavallaro (Italy), Friedrich Ermler (USSR), James Quinn (UK), Kiyohiko Ushihara (Japan), and Luchino Visconti (Italy).  This was reported in English by Fred Roos in his article “Venice Film Festival, 1956.” [The Quarterly of Film Radio and Television, 11.3 (Spring 1957)]  The Special Jury Prize and Silver Lion were also not awarded in 1956.  But then, these aforementioned  prizes are also intended for feature films.  In the 1950s, short films received less press than they do today for the prizes that they receive so it is difficult to dig up spectator's impressions of the films.  Even in the QFRV, Roos only mentions that 14 prizes were awarded to documentary and children films, but he does not give their titles.  He praises the Chinese and the Czechs as being “particularly outstanding in their use of puppets and animation” (253), but he does not mention Noburō Ōfuji at all.  Digging through French film journals in the library of the Deutsches Filminstitut in Frankfurt, I have also been unable to find information about reaction to The Phantom Ship at Venice in 1956.

So I dug deeper and found that according to the Venice Film Festival’s digital archives, The Phantom Ship was awarded an Honorable Mention for Experimental Film (Menzione per i film sperimentali).  This is not the grand prix, but a runner-up to Peter Foldes’s animated short film, A Short Vision, which won the award for Best Experimental Film (Premio per il miglior film sperimentale).  Foldes’s anti-Atom bomb film, which the BFI calls “one of the most influential British animated films ever made, had caused a huge sensation when it screened on May 27, 1956 on the popular variety show The Ed Sullivan Show in the US.

I think that the mistaken attribution of a grand prix at Venice to Ōfuji likely came from an error of translation somewhere along the line, and the difficulty of checking the name of the award without access to physical archives.  The Biennale’s online digital archive only became available in recent years and is currently only available in Italian, so it was difficult to check without going to an archive.  Also, the multiple spellings of Ōfuji’s name in the Latin alphabet (Ofuji, Ohfuji, Oofuji, etc.) make searches of online databases challenging.  In the trailer released by the NFC in September for the screening event at TIFF (Tokyo), the award Ōfuji received as Tokubetsushō (特別賞) – lit. special award – which matches the Italian well.

The Phantom Ship is indisputably a special film – one of the best animated shorts to come out of Japan in the 1950s, and when one takes into account Ōfuji’s other silhouette animations, he ranks as one of the top silhouette animators of all time alongside Lotte Reiniger, Bruno J. Böttge, and Michel Ocelot.  While pouring through old journals in the library, I discovered a forgotten nugget of information: The Phantom Ship was screened in the UK in 1957.  According to Bernard Orna, writing in the now defunct journal Films and Filming, The Phantom Ship was one of the films that at the First International Animated Film Festival, nicknamed the “Festival of Cartoons”, at the National Film Theatre (now BFI Southbank) in London.  He describes Ōfuji’s “open[ing] the door on an exciting variant of a kind of film known to us otherwise through the work of Lotte Reiniger.” (3.7 April 1957, p.33).  The door has indeed been opened, and I do hope that more young animators – like Aki Kono in her film Promises – choose to follow Ōfuji’s lead and experiment with the medium of silhouette animation.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2013