Humpback City is a folk hero of Japanese legend, and in order to promote his glorious image, many works of art about him have appeared in Japan. The most famous is the "Humpback City Story" series by Japanese director Kenji Misumi, which has produced 26 films in a period of more than a decade, creating a major miracle of Japanese samurai entertainment films. Among them, the humpback market created by Shintaro Katsu is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people and carries many Japanese childhood memories.
And Kitano Takeshi, as a Japanese, the reverie brought to him by the legendary blind swordsman of Humpback City when he was a teenager must also be deeply imprinted in his mind. It was this admiration and admiration for heroes that in September 2003, Takeshi Kitano released a new version of Humpback City, directed and starring him.
After the film was released, it immediately caused a strong response. In the same year, the film was nominated for the Golden Lion Award in the main competition section of the 60th Venice Film Festival, and Takeshi Kitano himself won the Silver Lion Award for Best Director.
The storyline of this film is relatively simple, mainly about: in 19th century Japan, a blind swordsman humpback city who is blind and proficient in swordsmanship comes to a small town controlled by criminal forces. In this town, everyone who passes by has to pay tolls to the evil forces, and the evil forces have the famous samurai Hattori to serve them, so they are arbitrary and unstoppable.
One day, in a gambling game, Humpback City encounters a pair of nobori siblings disguised as geisha wandering and selling in order to get revenge, and their target is the town's bullies Yinzang and Fanya. After learning of the tragic fate of Noko's brother and sister, Hutou City, who is good at fighting grievances, decides to help them avenge the murder of their parents, so in the next few days, an inevitable life-and-death battle will be launched between Hutou City and Hattori, a martial artist under the evil forces.
In the film, Takeshi Kitano adds many unprecedented innovative elements and uses unique shooting techniques, so that this film that expresses the aesthetics of violence brings strong sensory stimulation to the audience. The new version of Humpback City he created is a change from the traditional screen image of the past, and he uses his unique Kitano Takeshi-style film and television humor to vividly display a calm, calm, feminine and violent Humpback City in front of the audience.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >01, the violent aesthetic of pleasure and revenge is steeped in the strong Kitano Takeshi style</h1>
As a well-known Japanese director, Takeshi Kitano has always advocated the aesthetic of violence, from the previous "Gangster" to the later "Battle Royale 1" to this "Humpback City", blood and violence have always been pervasive in the film. But unlike in the past, the violence of "Humpback City" has further rendered the beauty of blending with nature.
There is a scene in the film where Humpback City and the gangsters fight in the rain, and the poetic rhythm created by violence makes the action and raindrops perfectly match, making the whole film full of gorgeous colors. At the end of the battle, the rain and blood melted in the valley, and the incomparably dignified music showed the beauty of pathos.
Because the protagonist is a blind kendo master, takeshi Kitano uses a multi-line narrative structure in the film to make the plot of this action film extremely exaggerated. The sword and light sword shadow gallops through the sinister rivers and lakes, and shows a chivalrous style in the happiness and vengeance, which may be the concentrated presentation of the unity in kitano Takeshi's violent aesthetics.
Known as Japan's most famous legendary figure Humpback City, he seems to be good and evil, with a strong emotional color of hatred and distinction. For his portrayal, Kitano Takeshi has his own unique understanding, he does not freeze the blind swordsman frame as a heroic character in a position of complete justice, but reinterprets an old naughty character in the game world with a witty and humorous attitude.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > 02, the metaphor of musical language gives Takeshi Kitano a special affection for martial arts dreams</h1>
Watching the movie Humpback City, you will find that although the director's subject is blind swordsman, Takeshi Kitano has worked the soundtrack. In particular, the sound of percussion music runs through the entire film, from the sound of hoeing at the beginning to the joint jump scene of the tap dance, there are rhythmic percussions everywhere, such auditory stimulation and weakened image color bring all the audiences into the blind sensory world of Humpback City.
The composer Keiichi Suzuki has combined jazz, Latin, Japanese folk music and other musical elements just right, making the overall style of the film appear melodious and elegant, although modern music has a strong smell, but it is very consistent with the style of the film. Whether it is labor scenes such as ploughing the land and building houses or tap dancing at the end of the film, these scenes and the soundtrack are organically combined to render a unique charm that is both dignified and gorgeous, but also cheerful and pleasant.
At the same time, Takeshi Kitano intersperses many metaphors combined with modern music in the superficial musical background. For example, the procession carrying the scarecrow; the four men who raised their hoes and struck percussion and the four men danced tap dances on the rainy farmland; and the last grand dance. These metaphors not only vent the blind man's cognition of the jianghu, but also express his indomitable persistence in the face of a tragic fate and the free heart of the game people from another level.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >03, the spirit of Bushido is not only a desire to advocate force, but also a symbol of the entire Japanese nation</h1>
Bushido is the core of the Japanese cultural spirit, the impact on the entire Japanese nation is extremely far-reaching, in addition to the spirit of Bushido distorted by militarist ideas, in fact, the traditional Japanese Bushido its original intention is still good, based on a moral code of the samurai. In summary, there are 8 main words, that is: name, loyalty, courage, righteousness, etiquette, sincerity, gram, benevolence, which is similar to the "chivalry" of the European Middle Ages, and the main propaganda is to betray responsibility and fulfill responsibility.
As Japanese samurai, the desire and morality of martial arts is the pillar of their adherence to the spirit of Bushido. In this film, we can feel from Humpback City and Hattori the samurai's infinite desire for force and the "morality" they uphold in order to satisfy this desire.
Hattori, who was hired by the evil forces, ostensibly to earn money to treat his wife, but in fact to realize his desire to be able to show his superb sword skills in front of other samurai, and it was under this desire that he violated morality and killed his wife almost at the same time.
And the protagonist of this film, humpback city, although his desire is also advocating force, he has his own morality. Because revenge for his father was the golden rule that dominated the hearts of the people in Japan at that time, he helped Noko's brothers and sisters to take revenge, putting morality above the rule of law, but it was a symbol of chivalry and heroism in the society at that time. The same desires and different "morals" of these two people reveal at a deep level the unique psychological characteristics of the Japanese nation under the influence of the Bushido spirit.
Through this film, we can see that Kitano Takeshi perfectly unleashes the conflicting beauty brought about by the contradictions of desire and morality in the film. On the one hand, the status of the Bushido spirit in the hearts of the Japanese people has been repositioned, and on the other hand, the traditional Japanese samurai film style has been ridiculed, but this kind of joke has refreshed the audience and made the film have an alternative diversified modern style.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > concluding remarks:</h1>
The film "Humpback City" is not an ordinary martial arts movie, it is not only an alternative interpretation of chivalry in Kitano Takeshi's heart, but also a concentrated embodiment of desire and morality in the spirit of Japanese Bushido, and at the same time, it also deeply shows the spiritual beliefs and spiritual destinations of the Japanese people.
In the film, Kitano Uses his own special style of film language, the combination of dynamic and static, in the midst of many contradictions, the expressionism and realism into one, giving him the philosophy of life in the film, highlighting it as much as possible, rendering not only an attitude towards life, but also his unique understanding of force and chivalry.