Band of Ninja (忍者武芸帳, 1967)

Thanks to the Japan Visualmedia Translation Academy (JVTA), we were treated to a rare screening of the full length version of Nagisa Ōshima’s “motion comic” Band of Ninja (忍者武芸帳/ Ninja Bugei-chō, 1967) at Nippon Connection 2014 with new subtitles by JVTA.  A shorter version on 35mm with an English narrator has played occasionally at Ōshima retrospectives, but as the film is only available on DVD in Japan (without subs) it was wonderful to see an HD transfer of the film with JVTA subs.  The subtitles had a black outline to make them stand out against the white background.

Order the DVD: Ninja bugei cho (JP only)

Ōshima (大島渚, 1932-2013) is best known for his innovative, and often controversial, feature films that turn an unflinching eye onto social issues often ignored by mainstream cinema.  From bigotry and xenophobia (The Catch, 1961) to state execution (Death By Hanging, 1968, read my review), and from exotic asphyxiation (In the Realm of the Senses, 1976) to torture and war crimes (Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, 1983), no topic was out-of-bounds for this filmmaker whom Maureen Turim called a “Japanese Iconoclast” (The Films of Oshima Nagisa, 1998).

Band of Ninja stands out from Ōshima’s other work because it is neither live action, nor a documentary, but a filmed manga.  Adapted from the popular epic manga series Band of Ninja aka Tales of Ninja (忍者武芸帳/ Ninja Bugei-chō, 1959-62) by Sanpei Shirato (白土三平, b. 1932), author of the legendary Garo series Kamui Den (カムイ伝, 1964-71), Ōshima’s film is often wrongly called an animated film.  There are actually no animated sequences in Ōshima’s film.   Instead he has brought the manga to life by actually filming the original illustrations. 

Although this sounds potentially very dull, Ōshima and cinematographer Akira Takada (Violence at Noon, Sing a Song of Sex), know just how to sustain visual interest. They use varying camera distances including many close-ups for character reaction shots.  A sense of movement is created by the camera itself moving across the page and frequent cutting.  The story is quite a fast-paced one, packed with changing locales and a wide swathe of characters, so there is hardly a chance to catch one’s breath.  A lot of the cinematic techniques used by Ōshima are commonplace in limited animation – particularly the way in which backgrounds are filmed.  The only difference is that the characters themselves are not moving at all either. 

The soundtrack makes up for the lack of animation with its use of professional actors and a narrator (Shōichi Ozawa), a lively soundtrack by Hikaru Hayashi (Onibaba, The Naked Island, Kuroneko, Postcard), and excellent special effects.  The film does feel a bit on the long side at 118 minutes, but when one considers that the original manga runs to 17 volumes, it’s clear that they streamlined the story quite a bit.  Long-time Ōshima collaborator Sasaki Momoru (佐々木守, 1936-2006) helped write the screenplay and would later to go on to work on a number of popular series such as Ultraman Taro (1973) and the Isao Takahata directed Heidi of the Alps (1974).

The story begins in 1560 (Eiroku 3) during a prolonged time of great upheaval in Japan known as the Sengoku Period (c.1467 - c.1573) or the “Warring States” period.  The central characters are Kagemaru (Rokko Toura), a dashing but mysterious ninja who seems to have the ability to magically appear and save the day when a situation seems impossible; Jūtaro Yūki (Kei Yamamoto), who seeks to avenge the slaughter of his father and restore himself as master of Fushikage Castle; Akemi (Akiko Koyama), Jūtaro’s love interest and secret sister of Kagemaru; and the baddie, Oda Nobunaga (Fumio Watanabe), the evil daimyō and nemesis of Kagemaru, who seeks to unify Japan through violence and oppression.

Trailer: Band of Ninja von scottpurin

The cast of characters is quite vast and it is hard to keep track of exactly where one is, which battle is taking place, and what year it is because the pace moves so quickly.  It is hard to imagine the manga being made as a live action film in the late 1960s because of the extreme violence and complicated special effects.  The ninja employ Kagemusha (影武者), “Shadow Warriors” or “body doubles” which could be achieved with today’s CGI but would have been difficult in 1967.  It occurred to me during the screening that Band of Ninja could easily be adapted as a kind of Japanese version of Game of Thrones.  It may seem hard to believe but I believe I saw more gruesome deaths and heads on spikes per minute in Band of Ninja than in a typical episode of Game of Thrones. 

If you are a fan of manga and have a chance to see this film, I highly recommend it.  The two highlights for me where the rollicking opening Kagemaru theme song and the way the camera lovingly shows off the original artwork by Sanpei Shirato.  A must-have for any fan of ninja manga.  To learn more about the manga, I recommend: Keith J. Rainville’s vintageninja.net and Ba Zi (aka Nicholas Theisen)’s What is Manga?

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2014

CREW

Director: Nagisa Oshima

Original Story: Sanpei Shirato

Screenplay: Mamoru Sasaki, Nagisa Oshima

Cinematography: Akira Takada

Editor: Keiichi Uraoka

Music: Hikaru Hayashi

Sung by: Sumito Tachikawa

Hideo Nishizaki

Producers: Masayuki Nakajima, Takuji Yamaguchi, Nagisa Oshima

Production Company: Sōzōsha

Distributer: Art Theatre Guild

VOICE CAST

Shōichi Ozawa (Narrator)

Kei Yamamoto (Jūtarō Yūki)

Akiko Koyama (Akemi)

Kei Satō (Shuzen Sakagami)

Noriko Matsumoto (Hotarubi)

Yoshiyuki Fukuda (Mufū-Dōjin)

Hideo Kanze (Nobutsuna Kamiizumi)

Nobuo Tanaka (Munetoshi Yagyu)

Juro Hayano (Boss of the Ikazuchi Band)

Shigeru Tsuyuguchi (Mitsuhide Akechi)

Fumio Watanabe (Nobunaga Oda and Kennyo)

Hikaru Hayashi (Tōkichirō Kinoshita)

Rokko Toura (Kagemaru)

Hōsei Komatsu (Onikichi [Zōroku])

Mitsuhiko Shibata (Ramaru Mori)

Keisuke Nakai (Takezō)

Ikuko Yamazaki (Chiyo)

Hideaki Ezuki (Head of the Village)

Kōichi Itō (Kyōnyo)

Yūko Hisamatsu (Kokemaru)

Minoru Matsushima (Girl)

Aiko Konoshima (female beggar)

Ikuyo Morita (another female beggar)

Tsuneo Sanada (Saizō)

Tadayoshi Ueda (One-eyed man)

Hatsuo Yamatani (farmer)

Sumiko Shirakawa (vagrant boy)

Anthology with Cranes (鶴下絵和歌巻, 2011)

One of the highlights of Kōji Yamamura’s Retrospective at Nippon Connection 2014 was the rare opportunity to see his short-short animation Anthology with Cranes (鶴下絵和歌巻/Tsuru shitae waka kan, 2011).  During our Filmmaker’s Talk, I learned that Yamamura did not come up with the concept for this piece.  It was commissioned by a television series in which the producers were looking for artists to make works inspired by famous pieces of art.   Although the initial concept was not his own, Yamamura told us that he enjoyed the project very much.

The inspiration for this film is the celebrated early Edo period (17^th century) scroll painting of the same name, Anthology with Cranes (鶴下絵和歌巻/Tsuru shitae waka kan).  The hand scroll has been designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan ((重要文化財 / Jūyō Bunkazai) and can be found in the Kyoto National Museum.  An online scrollable version of the work with a description can be found on their website Kyohaku.

The scroll is 34 cm tall and 1,356 cm wide and features fine calligraphy by Honami Kōetsu (本阿弥 光悦, 1558-1637), with decorative paintings Tawaraya Sōtatsu (俵屋 宗達, c. early 17^th century, active as a painter 1602-35).  The motif of cranes is painted in silver and gold behind the calligraphy.  The slender forms of these graceful birds are delicately depicted in a variety of poses from standing to flying. 

Order: Isao Takahata's 12th Century Animation

In our chat, Yamamura said that it was not always clear in what direction the birds are moving, so he had to rely upon his own instincts in his interpretation of this experimental work.  Instead of silver and gold paint he has used watercolour.  The camera mimics the gaze of the reader of the scroll by “tracking” slowly from right to left (in the direction in which one would read a scroll in Japanese).  While screening the film, I was reminded of animation director Isao Takahata’s art book 12^th Century Animation (十二世紀のアニメーション―, 1999), in which suggests that ancient scrolls are the ancestors of contemporary manga and anime.    

Yamamura’s interpretation of this elegant scroll is beautiful and entrancing.  The added touch of the natural sounds of cranes and lapping water recall the shallow bays where cranes might be found looking for food.  My only criticism was that the commission called for such a short film, for I could have watched it for many minutes more.

Support this artist by buying his work: Kafka Inaka Isha

HD / 2011 /Japan / 1’55”/ Colour

Direction, Animation and Painting

Koji Yamamura

Inbetweening

Koji Yamamura, Ayaka Nakata, Miki Tanaka

Assistant

Sanae Yamamura

Sound Design

Koji Kasamatsu

Sound Mix

Kenji Saito

Thanks to

Erika Hashiguchi, Chiyoda Raft

Production Company

Yamamura Animation

review by: Catherine Munroe Hotes 2014 

This work screened at Nippon Connection 2014 #nc14 :

The Portrait Studio (寫眞館, 2013)

It is rare that an animated film moves me to tears, but Takashi Nakamura’s tender depiction of the passage of time during one of Japan’s most turbulent eras in The Portrait Studio (寫眞館 / Shashinkan, 2013) truly left me reaching for a handful of tissues.  This 18-minute short tells two stories: one of the relationship between a photographer and one of his subjects and, intertwined with it, a visual tale of the modernization of Japan. 

It begins amongst the lush greenness of Meiji Japan (the late 19^th century), when photography was in its infancy.  A rickshaw brings a newly married couple across a spring meadow to the foot of a hill.  The man is dressed in a military uniform and the woman in an elegant European-style gown with a large hat.   They ascend a stone staircase to a lovely European-style wooden house that is home to the Hinomaru Portrait Studio.  The woman sits for her portrait but is too shy to raise her face to the camera, so the friendly photographer picks a bouquet of flowers for her.  His intuition proves correct, for the woman raises her head smiling and the photographer successfully catches the woman’s smile on film.

Thus begins the relationship between the photographer and this family.  Time passes, and the woman brings her infant daughter for a photograph.  The woman has lost her shyness in front of the camera but the baby startles the photographer with the angry expression on her face.  The photographer does his best to cajole the baby girl into smiling but it is all in vain.  As the baby grows up into girlhood and then womanhood, she comes back again and again for portraits of herself, her students, and her son, but she never smiles.  Despite this, a bond grows between subject and photographer and Nakamura creates suspense in us as spectators as we watch with growing anticipation to see if the woman will finally relent and smile for the camera.   

It is a moving tale that explores how photographs in the modern era have become such an important part of how we remember both our personal and collective histories.  I was reminded of something the renowned American photojournalist Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) – who lived during the same period and is famous for her photographs of the Depression and of the WWII Japanese relocation centres – once said: “Photography takes an instant out of time, altering it by holding it still.”

Photographs are reminders of happy times that have passed, and the bonds of friendship between the photographer and his subjects – the central character in this film is really a symbol of the whole community – remain steadfast in the face of a rapidly changing landscape.  Shot in glorious widescreen (21:9), Nakamura – who wrote, directed, and did the key animation for this labour of love – depicts the dramatic changes that happened in Tokyo and environs during this period from the Edo times through the devastation of the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, the rise of nationalism in Japan, the second devastation of Tokyo due to American bombing, and into the modern trains and buildings of the immediate post-war era.  The film has no dialogue, with additional aural context provided by special effects (incidental noise) the lovely classical piano score composed by Jun Ichikawa.  This animated short is a visual delight with each frame a piece of art in its own right. 

CREW

Direction, Story, Key Animation:

Takashi Nakamura

Art Director:

Shinji Kimura

Animation Check:

Mitsunori Murata

Colour Designer:

Terumi Nakauchi

Director of Photography:

Mitsuhiro Satō

CGI Director:

Daisuke Oyabu

Music:

Jun Ichikawa

Sound Director, Sound Producer:

Yoshikazu Iwanami

Sound Effects:

Yasumasa Koyama

Sound Mixer:

Takayuki Yamaguchi

Production Company:

Studio Colorido

Takashi Nakamura (中村たかし, b. 1955) is a seasoned Japanese animator and director from Yamaguchi.  He began his career in animation as an inbetweener in 1974, and his debut work as an animation director on Golden Warrior Gold Lightan (黄金戦士ゴールド・ライタ, 1981-2) was influential to many of his peers including Kōji Morimoto.  More recently, his anime feature A Tree of Palme (パルムの樹, 2002) made the official selection at the Berlinale.  Nakamura is a founding member of the Japan Animation Creators Association (JAniCA) labour group. 

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2014

I saw this film at Nippon Connection 2014 #nc14