Wen Shu Sairen
Genre films, in which savvy film merchants and diligent film artists reached a conspiracy with the audience. This point is the earliest formation of a chain of interests formed by feeding and antiphagy in the United States. It's just that in other countries, there are not many people competing to follow suit. It can also be said that more regions can neither export cultures nor for them. East Asian countries have always had the strength to catch up, and Japan alone has learned a lot from Hollywood for its ethics dramas and fight scenes.
But after World War II, the golden age of Japanese cinema, their war wounds bounced back with a wonderful cultural confidence. They believe that their own history can only be told in their own way. Genre films still exist, such as comedies, horror films, heterochromatic films, Renxia films, and sword films, which are obviously more vigorous than before the war. In the vast majority, Japan's own cultural habits are on the rise. This also caused Japanese films to be widely accepted in East and Southeast Asia due to the border of cultural motifs, but it was difficult to push to a wider area and could only end there.
Japanese, or Japanese-style films, are most concerned by other East Asian countries. In Hong Kong alone, for example, Xu Ke highly praised the Seven Samurai, and the first paragraph of the "Wise Tiger Mountain" directly learned from Kurosawa Akira.
The Seven Samurai (1954)
In Wong Kar-wai's "East Evil and West Poison", when the blind swordsman parted, he said that the best sound in the world was the sound that spewed out of his veins. Apparently, it was appropriated from Kenji Misumi's "Okuko Yuro" series. Du Qifeng's (also including Yang Dechang)'s favorite sword film is "Cut belly". However, Hong Kong's martial arts films, whether in terms of audiovisual composition or intention, are different from Japanese sword films, to put it mildly, with clouds and mud.
We are sacrificing for a concept, and they are dying to destroy it. All martial arts movies in China are either foolish, blind and romantic, or all forms of flaunting martial arts. And very instrumentally around the anti-riot and annular circle, for whom to eliminate the riot has become a problem, either to recruit security, or to become cannon fodder for the power movement.
"Harassing" (1962)
As the most important screenwriter of the Japanese sword film, and also the best Japanese screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto, said. They first had to solve the problem of eating for samurai or ronin, and then they cared about their ultimate proposition that there was no sword in their hands and no sword in their hearts. And we, neither of these problems have really been solved. I only saw a little bit of Chinese production in "Sword Rain" and "Wuxia", but the final color has not yet reached such a considerable level, especially "Wuxia", and the gimmick overwhelms the thought.
Wuxia (2011)
Japanese sword films are naturally influenced by American Westerns, which is particularly prominent in Akira Kurosawa's body, but Akira Kurosawa's films also feed back Westerns. These two of my favorite genres emphasize the importance of power to exist, and highly acknowledge that the eruption of power will bring people back to the uncivilized period of ignorance. Westerns are keen to tell that barbarism is the prelude to civilization, and sword-and-sword films are happy to explore the uselessness of violence, linking the absurdity of man with the mechanization of institutions.
These two major genres are wrapped in the secrets of their respective nationalities, and I would like to say that Westerns are more time than space, so after the end of the Western Frontier, Westerns still appear in our vision with a posture of changing skins and hearts. Not to mention the disguised Westerns such as "Midnight Cowboy" and "Old Nobody".
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Veteran cowboy Clint Eastwood's films are almost always an elegy for the decline of the Western spirit. Basically all of them point to the Edo period before the Meiji Restoration, that is, the end of the samurai class to show that Japan, a resource-poor island nation with a large population, began to undergo earth-shaking changes.
As a conservative force, the samurai were reluctant to withdraw from the stage of history. The more so, the more it can reflect the little bit of broken bones when the individual will is crushed by the wheel of the times.
During the Showa period, there were sword-and-sword films like Uchida Tomon, Akira Kurosawa, Masaki Kobayashi, Kihachi Okamoto, and Heroes Gosha, as well as business leaders like Kenji Misumi, Keio Ishii, Toshihachi Fujita, Kazuo Ikehiro, and Shinji Fukasaku. There are also literary and art film directors such as Masahiro Shinoda and Yasuo Shinoki, and the film giant Kenji Mizoguchi has also dabbled in this genre, that is, "Genroku Tadatoshi Zang".
"Yuan Lu Zhongchen Zang" (1941)
By the Heisei period, Ichikawa Kun, Nagisa Oshima, the rising star Takeshi Kitano, and Takashi Miike all had their own sword shadows, including Kore-eda, but they were no longer brilliant. This time, it was the turn of Japan's most famous national director, Yoji Yamada. In 2003, based on Shuhei Fujisawa's novel, Twilight Kiyobei swept all of Japan's major film awards that year. Some people even think that this under-light film will bring light to the sword and blade film. Obviously, it is premature.
Twilight Guards (2002)
Many people are curious, and Yoji Yamada, who is good at making family dramas and useless people, directed the era drama for the first time, and chose a rigid heavy sword film. If I can speculate, when Yoji Yamada studied art with Nomura Yoshitaro, he was once confused that he could not summarize life from a sociological point of view, but he quickly found his own place. Before he officially filmed the Shumin drama, he had collaborated with Shinobu Hashimoto on "Flag of the Mist", which was a film that was quite successful in audiovisual terms. He also co-wrote "Sandware" with Shinobu Hashimoto.
Sandware (1974)
I think that Hashimoto Shinobi, the most important sage of the sword and blade piece, will somehow transmit something to the gentle Yamada Jun. In "The Story of Injiro", which brought a lasting reputation to Yoji Yamada, there is frequent appearance of an outdoor tall man, who can hit if he does not shoot. The dust outflowers who have this kind of learning are not swordsmen, but painters or craftsmen. But Yoji Yamada's writing style is entirely the way china's most traditional martial arts novels are.
The Story of Injiro (1969)
In Yoji Yamada and Ken Takakura's "The Call of the Distant Mountains" and "The Yellow Handkerchief of Happiness", we can all see that the most famous tough guy in East Asia has his beautiful and neat techniques. What I want to say is that Yoji Yamada still has a hidden heroic complex, but Yoji Yamada is reluctant to make the characters most completely heroic, he knows that the real hero is to fight with himself, to overcome the weaknesses of human nature. In Yamada's view, this is not necessary. Between mortals and heroes, Yoji Yamada would not hesitate to choose the former.
Strict Bushido is the realization of death. The ideal state of Bushido is not survival, but death, the idyllic samurai is not a good samurai, and death on the battlefield or suicide is the ideal destination. Yoji Yamada obviously did not want to sing the praises of these, and being loyal to a certain group was far from being unbearable and unwilling to a specific person.
The Call of the Distant Mountains (1980)
It is also said that without Shuhei Fujisawa's novels, Yoji Yamada probably would not have even had the idea of making a sword film. People generally regard Shuhei Fujisawa's samurai novels as a portrayal of the mood of a different office worker. Nine to five is diligent, but by no means willing, is to use various methods to steal half a day's leisure, but sometimes, stealing is better than stealing. Yoji Yamada is not particularly fond of this interchange between tradition and modernity, but what makes his heart flutter is the era itself.
After the samurai trilogy, Yoji Yamada released "Mother", "If You Are with Your Mother", and "Little Home". They all set their sights on Japan during World War II. In the midst of the unknowable fate, they gradually gain an extremely difficult self-knowledge.
Little Home (2014)
Almost all of the protagonists of Shuhei Fujisawa's novels are a bit precocious to the times, and they are reluctant to keep up with the beat of the times, but they still become part of the times. The same is true of "Dusk Kiyobei", the Japanese love to be clean, and the Kiyobei guard does not trim the edges to the point where people have to cover their noses. He did not communicate with his colleagues, and in front of his superiors, he also wanted to hide his illustrious past as a dojo instructor. As a civil servant, he was afraid that those around him would know that he was particularly qualified for the post.
His low profile, a protective color, is a rejection of the more noisy and yellow worldly. But he wants to stand in the world in the face of the earth, in his own twilight, back to his relatives, it can also be said that he returns to his own side. But what Shuhei Fujisawa, or Yoji Yamada wants to tell us, is that dusk is only a moment, a moment longer than dusk, waiting for you to pass through little by little. There is no transcendent world, such as Injiro and Kiyobei.
Every time I watch "The Guard of the Twilight", I don't want to see the moment when it ends. I have long known its composure and affection, but when I watched it, I still felt that time passed quickly. Rejecting a person who is deeply loved, to kill a person who is almost like yourself, even if such a life has a major turnaround, can you really wait for inner peace? Hidden here is a least humorous Yamada, one that is at least visually, the darkest to match the title. What he wants to say is that if he wants to achieve the happiness of his imagination, he must kill his past self, and this self will be replaced by an old samurai played by Tanaka.
Both are working for their lives for the Lord, and neither will be able to die well. When the Kiyobei guards bladed this old samurai, it seemed to me to be a more spiritual cut. Like many people, the part that most makes me hold my breath is the duel between Sanada Hiroyuki and Tanaka. Tanaka was so hungry that he ate his daughter's ashes very gracefully and scattered it on the ground before he died. The sound consisted of bloodthirsty flies flying and corpses flowing down the river, and the samurai fishing on the river. When have you ever seen such a sight-to-face death, Yamada's heart is more gentle because of this fierceness.
Watching Du Qingchun's discussion of this film many years ago, I remember that he was desperate for the love in the film, and he said that it was real love. Is love meant to be like the glow of a firefly in this film? In the moment when darkness and light intersect, dusk is coming, and love is coming? Love in this movie comes with the gaze.
Before Miyazawa Riki's Peng Jiang had appeared, Qingbingwei felt some heat in his back, and as soon as he turned around, the beauty slowly unfolded in front of him. This was Peng Jiang's gaze, and Qing Bingwei's gaze was a little foolish, and Peng Jiang was not ashamed of this, but more and more idyllic to meet this gaze. Then we saw the moon, trembling in the clouds.
And when Peng Jiang left, Qing Bingwei sat under the eaves, his whole eyes were empty, he was imagining how Peng Jiang was holding up an oil-paper umbrella and turning lightly in the rain. Sanada Hiroyuki's performance at this moment is really good, and Riki Miyazawa's beauty is fully worthy of such a focused and distracted gaze.
On the occasion of the Great War, I also heard the most moving love words, from the mouth of QingBingwei: he said that after Pengjiang got married, including after he got married, his love for Pengjiang did not dissipate for half a minute. That is, their love has nothing to do with the institution of marriage, but they still need marriage to sustain their love. This is a rather magical intertextuality with Kiyobei's samurai identity.
At the end of the film, it is Tomoe (Riki Miyazawa) who reshapes the image of Sanada Hiroyuki, so that men are braver and more "utilitarian" in the eyes of women. Yamada's greatness is that he acknowledges that being trapped in the world can make a real escape, and he often has a desire for an orderly life. There is no clear distinction between the two, more often it is like a shadow, but also a cold lip.