Movie Kitaro and Yajiro in The Night (2005) Japanese Blu-ray edition cover
Kitaro and Yajiro in True Night / True Night Nakamijiro /True Night Naka miji さん喜多さん (2005) is based on the manga of the same name by Jiri Uesu, in which Edo Cubs who lived more than 200 years ago are completely different from what people think today, they drive motorcycles, smoke marijuana, listen to rock music, and look like ancient and modern Chinese and foreign fashion trendsetters who travel through time and space. The author's intention has a lot of postmodern surrealism in it. A tribute to pop wind and the visual claims of the 1980s. It's not just about showing everyone the world of crazy and stupid. It combines the interpretation of dreams, the contradictions and fusion of imagination and reality, and has the legacy of Zhuangzi's philosophical thought. Combining the material products and ways of thinking of Japanese national culture, this Chinese may not be understood.
In the Edo period of more than two hundred years, Yaji and Kita were a homosexual couple, and Kita had always had a habit of abusing drugs, and Yaji, who loved Kita deeply, decided to take Kita with him to visit Ise Jingu Shrine, hoping to restore Kita to normal through the power of the gods. During the long journey, they encountered many strange things, and could the love between the two allow them to overcome all difficulties and successfully reach Ise Jingu Shrine?
Stills from the movie Kitaro and Yajiro in the True Night (2005).
In the manga Kitaro and Yajiro in the True Night, Jirigami breaks the boundaries and uses his amazing imagination to borrow the ancient and the present, while director Miyato Kankuro completely visualizes The fantasy of Jirigami Shou's imagination, interlacing ancient and modern, and making an unprecedented costume film. In this game, Miyato Kankuro also brings together the elites of different sectors such as movies, funny, song and dance skills, and manga, and the chemical reactions they produce are absolutely unexpected! Kuro Miyato, who has served as a screenwriter for "Ping Pong" (2002) and "Go/GO! The Great Rampage" (2001), took you on a whimsical fantasy journey for the first time.
Grotesque and eerie are the most appropriate words to describe the style of this film. "Kitaro and Yajiro in the True Night" uses everything in the expression method: nonsensical lines, separated plots, strange shapes, gorgeous stunts, rock music In the rambling structure, you can see the redemption of the characters running through the main line; in the absurd plot, there is another kind of thinking of the creator. Yaji (Nagase Tomoya) takes Kita (Nanosuke Nakamura) on a pilgrimage to Ise in order to help Kita (Nanosuke Nakamura) rehabilitate himself. This process has some road slices of color. Along the way, they meet different people, so that they feel the rich meaning of life, get sincere self-knowledge, and thus obtain the salvation of the heart.
Joke Inn, Happy Inn, Singing Inn, King Inn, Soul Inn, Yaji and Kita stayed in turn and experienced different life experiences. Structurally, unlike some movies, different locations are rigorously connected, but scattered and separated. Yaji and Kita's love is precious, but they have to face the damage this love has done to Keiko. The sound of rice tao at the beginning of the film is exactly what Keiko is referring to as an actor, which is self-evident.
More important to this process is the confrontation between two aspects: Yaji's love for Kita and the drug's temptation for Hita. From the joke hotel to the joke master, this confrontation began. Kita's constant hallucinations about Yaji appear in front of him, which is the externalization of the very image. In the rest of the film, Kita's hallucinations become less and less frequent, indicating that his addiction to drugs is becoming shallower and shallower, but more temptations still appear from time to time. When Kita is determined to help Keiko, who can't sing, hold a singing party, Yaji takes the initiative to take drugs to seduce Kita, and Kita doesn't think so, so Yaji is ecstatic. However, it is difficult to predict that Kita will fall in love with Keiko later, and even fight with Yaji because of this.
After the singing party, Yaji and Kita's arms are joined together, and in contrast, they drift apart spiritually. Kita, who is addicted to drugs, kills Yaji. At this time, the subtitle of "finish" appeared in the movie, giving the audience an illusion, and then taking the initiative to separate Kita. After regretting it, he was determined to redeem himself.
There has always been a question: does the comradehood between the two male protagonists in the play have any special significance for the major themes of survival disillusionment and life's journey explored throughout the play? If the protagonist is replaced by a man and a woman, will it have an impact on the theme? Some people will think that this movie, whether male or female, male and male, is nothing more than a relationship between people and people, and has nothing to do with grandiose purpose. However, the original book's setting of the relationship between the protagonists is of far-reaching significance and irreplaceable.
Seeing the two men together, they couldn't help but think that their relationship was ambiguous. The sexual orientation of public figures or the protagonists of literary and artistic works is always accustomed to making wishful thinking and speculations. So I looked around, bustling and mighty, all of my race, so the world was the same. This tendency is very dangerous.
But that doesn't mean absolutely abandoning the gay perspective, and sometimes, wearing a pair of gay glasses to see the world, you can often see something extraordinary. In this play, for example, using the tribulations of life to compare the struggles of Yaji and Kita in this world, and the two people's almost adventure-like pursuit of the Elysium "Ise", which may not exist, can naturally be explained. However, if it is replaced by the forbidden love between comrades who are cruel and therefore poignant, replaced by the current situation of comrades in the heterosexual context, which is like the original sin of the original sin, and then extended to the common miserable life of all mankind and regardless of sexual orientation, it suddenly feels that there is a kind of beauty that is absolutely loud. It's like going to the same place, the right path is certainly healthy, but the other road has one more turn and a lot more scenery. When watching this play, this turn in thinking, if omitted, is a pity.
Another place where footnotes can be provided is the theme song "Real Woman", which Yaji repeatedly chants in the play.
"Because you're around me, so have me today/one day find my true self/huh, and at that point will be a real woman/Please!" Take me away, please take me away", isn't this a tragic song of comrades' painstaking quest for their true identity and true "self"? In this way, all of our hearts that have now or have struggled with the loneliness of love can also resonate with a little solidarity with the "loneliness" that Yaji has repeatedly hung on to his lips. The interpretation of the play from the perspective of mainstream culture is still a typical Chinese-style hypocrisy to hide its face.
Many of the props in the film make it difficult to understand the age of the film. Two people dressed in kimonos in the Edo period get on a motorcycle and embark on a detoxification journey; people at joke hotels wear pink sportswear; girls at Happy Inns wear student clothes for modern Japanese girls; and Soul Inns are sauna-washers who all look the same.
The director of "Kitaro and Yajiro in the True Night", Kuro Miyato (center), and two male lead actors, Tomoya Nagase (left), Nanosuke Nakamura, pose for a group photo at the shooting scene
A lot of the footage in the film is very beautiful. The backdrop of Singing Inn is Japan's famous Mount Fuji. The source of death's weeping, the eyes are two springs, the waterfall of tears flowing down the legs, the restless surface that flows down the legs, and hides the delicate emotions that are sometimes externalized. When Yaji and Kita reunite at the tea plantation, the two hug each other tightly, and the film plays soft music. The love fate of Yaji and Kita touches the hearts of the audience.
The music of the film is very rich, and the creators also use a lot of rock music and American Hip-Hop style songs. The film is based on an imaginative manga, and this film also brings out the funny skills that Miyato Kankuro is good at. Director Kankuro Miyato is the number one geek in the Japanese television industry, and his film and television works look strange, but they have a unique flavor. Following the film Kitaro and Yajiro in The Night, Miyato Kankuro directed Shonen Finger Tiger/Shonen Finger Tiger/Shonen Shōnen Shōgun Shōnen 若くして死ぬ" (2016) and other movies.
Poster for the Japanese version of the movie Kitaro and Yajiro in the True Night (2005).