Tag: Keishi Otomo

The Legend & Butterfly (レジェンド＆バタフライ, Keishi Otomo, 2023)

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“What was everything for?” an ageing Nobunaga (Takuya Kimura) asks his attendant Ranmaru (Somegoro Ichikawa) towards the conclusion of Keishi Otomo’s historical epic, The Legend & Butterfly (レジェンド＆バタフライ, Legend & Butterfly) produced in celebration of Toei’s 70th anniversary. Oda Nobunaga is such a prominent historical figure that his story has been told countless times to the extent that his legend eclipses the reality, but rarely has been he depicted so sympathetically as in Otomo’s history retold as romantic melodrama in which he and his wife, Lady No (Haruka Ayase), are mere puppets of the times in which they live dreaming only of a place beyond the waves where they might be free of name or family. 

Tellingly, Otomo opens in the spring of 1549 in which the dynastic marriage was arranged to broker peace between unstable neighbouring nations Owari and Mino. Nobunaga’s father’s health is failing and he fears in the chaos of his death Mino may attack, while No’s father fears that her brother will soon revolt against him plunging the fiefdom into disarray and therefore vulnerable to an attack by Owari. At this point, Nobunaga is known as “the biggest idiot in Owari,” a foppish dandy who cares only about appearances. As he prepares to meet No, his courtiers apply his makeup and do his hair while dressing him in a rather outlandish outfit No immediately insults as “foolish”. He treats her with chauvinistic disdain, barely speaking save to order her to pour the drinks and give him a massage only for her to point out that she’s been travelling all day and a “thoughtful” considerate husband would be giving her a massage instead. “I detest women who do not know their place,” he snaps. “I detest men who are ignorant,” she counters. The wedding night ends in humiliating failure as No demonstrates her martial arts skills and Nobunaga is forced to call his guards to rescue him. 

Little is known of Lady No in historical record, but here she is bold and defiant, as her father had said too free with her opinions for a woman of the feudal era. She claims to have been married twice before and assassinated both husbands on her father’s orders, implying that she is essentially sleeper agent more than hostage and will kill Nobunaga without a moment’s thought as soon as the word is given. Yet she also begins to guide her husband towards his destiny, mocking him as a fool but giving him useful strategic advice that wins him glory on the battlefield along with the political advancement that led him to become the first great unifier of Japan. For all that they “hate” each other, they are well matched and have a similar sensibility that allows them first to become allies and then friends before frustrated lovers.

But their love is enabled only when they escape the feudal world, shaking off their retainers to go on a “normal” date in Kyoto where they dance to Western musicians and taste foreign candy only to end up accidentally massacring some peasants when No’s martial arts training kicks in trying to stop a man beating his son. Even so, they are forever linked by their time in Kyoto in the romantic talisman’s of a carved wooden frog and a European lute even if the blood-spattered jizo and buddhist statue watching their eventual connection imply there will be a reckoning for all the blood that is spent. Jumping on a few years, the film does not elaborate on what caused Nobunaga to become a man without a heart and lose the love of his most trusted ally but positions his transformation into the “Demon King” as the kernel of his undoing just as his dream of unifying Japan and bringing about an age of peace (if one ruled by fear) is about to become a reality. 

In any case, the one thing that everybody knows about Nobunaga is how he died though then again his remains were never recovered giving rise to a happier ending in which he and Lady No were finally able to escape the feudal world to chase a freer future beyond the sea which is perhaps what they do in the film’s poetic final sequence in which they might in a sense share a dream connected by frog and lute. It might not be very historically accurate, but that is perhaps the point in hinting at the lives they might have led if the world had been different. Otomo films with a painterly eye that lends an air of poignant gravitas to a tale of romantic tragedy in which love is both salvation and destruction amid the flames of a collapsing temple. 

The Legend & Butterfly screened as part of this year’s JAPAN CUTS.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Beneath the Shadow (影裏, Keishi Ohtomo, 2020)

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“There’s nothing wrong with leaving it a mystery” the enigmatic presence at the centre of Keishi Ohtomo’s Beneath the Shadow (影裏, Eiri) advises the hero as he vows to look into the unexpected appearance of a fish found swimming in the wrong river. Best known for mainstream blockbusters such as the Rurouni Kenshin series, March Comes in Like a Lion, and Museum, Ohtomo shits towards an arthouse register in adapting the Akutagawa Prize-winning novella by Shinsuke Numata which is in a sense obsessed with the unseen, the hidden details of life and secret sides we all have that are perhaps intended to protect but also leave us vulnerable. 

Konno (Go Ayano), an introverted man in his 30s, has just been transferred to rural Morioka by the pharmaceuticals company at which he works. He keeps himself to himself and largely spends his time caring for a Jasmine plant which appears to have some especial yet unexplained significance. It’s at work that he first encounters the enigmatic Hiasa (Ryuhei Matsuda), reminding him that theirs is a non-smoking building only to discover that Hiasa isn’t the sort to care very much about rules. For some reason or other, Hiasa takes a liking to Konno, turning up at his house with sake, teaching him how to fish, and going on what to anyone else look like dates. Yet when winter comes Hiasa abruptly quits his job and disappears without a word, resurfacing a few months later with a better haircut and a sharp suit explaining that he’s now a top salesman for a suspicious insurance company designed to help pay for expensive ceremonies such as weddings or more commonly funerals. The two men resume their friendship, but soon enough Hiasa again disappears. Only when he’s contacted by a co-worker (Mariko Tsutsui) after the earthquake hoping to find him because it turns out he owes her a large some of money does Konno begin to reflect on how little he might really have known this man he thought a friend. 

“Right from the start you have to groom it so it’s tantalised” Hiasa later explains, operating on several metaphorical levels but talking quite literally about lighting a fire. Konno has to wonder if that’s all it really was, if Hiasa is just a manipulative sociopath playing a long game, getting him on side in case he’d be useful later. When he resurfaces after his first absence, Hiasa eventually asks Konno to sign for one of his policies claiming that he’s one away from his quota and will be getting the can if he can’t fill it despite having talked a big game in proudly showing off a commendation he’d won as a top salesman when he turned up on Konno’s doorstep. “What you see is where the light hit for an instant, no more than that. When you look at someone you should look at the other side, the part where the shadow is deepest”, Hiasa had pointedly told him during a heated fireside conflagration, seemingly hurt as if in the moment he had wanted to be seen and is disappointed to be met with Konno’s irritated rejection, fed up with his mixed signals and distance both emotional and physical. 

Yet Konno is also himself living half in shadow as a closeted man choosing not to disclose his sexuality to those around him. A meeting with an old friend who has since transitioned presumably having embraced her own essential self raises further questions about the reasons he accepted the transfer to Morioka as if he too, like Hiasa, wanted to disappear from his old life and reinvent himself somewhere new, he’s just done it in a more conventional way. Even in contemporary Japan which is in some ways very old fashioned when it comes to the technology of everyday life and with a strong belief in personal privacy it’s surprisingly easy to just vanish at the best of times, but even his family members who are in no hurry to find him wonder if Hiasa may simply have used the cover of disaster to disappear for good. His conflicted brother (Ken Yasuda) affirms he thinks he’s probably alive because he’s “someone who can survive anywhere” which in the way he’s putting it is not much of a character reference. 

The conclusion Konno seems to come to, in a happier epilogue some years later, is that Hiasa himself was perhaps a fish swimming in the wrong waters, unable to adapt to the world around him. Perhaps it’s alright for him to remain a mystery because a mystery was what he was. Konno, by contrast, sets himself free apparently less gloomy, no longer living half in shadow, even if still hung up on the one that got away. A slow burn affair, Beneath the Shadow eventually refuses conflagration in favour of something cooler in accepting that you never really know anyone, perhaps not even yourself, even when you peer into the darkest part of the shadow. In the end you just have to let it go, “the cycle keeps repeating”. 

Beneath the Shadow streams in the US via the Smart Cinema app until Sept. 12 as part of this year’s New York Asian Film festival.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Rurouni Kenshin 2: Kyoto Inferno (UK Anime Network Review)

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ruruoni_kenshin_the_kyoto_inferno_still(saito’s just so cool!)

Review of the first Rurouni Kenshin sequel, Rurouni Kenshin 2: Kyoto Inferno up at UK Anime Network.

At the end of the first Rurouni Kenshin live action film, you might have been forgiven for thinking that this once wandering warrior had finally found a place to hang up his (reverse blade) sword for good. As fans of Nobuhiro Watsuki’s much loved manga and its anime adaptation will know, there’s no such luck for Himura Kenshin or the long suffering Kaoru as once again Kenshin will be called upon to put his unique skills to use and this time the very survival of Japan’s new era of modernism and equality is at stake!

Having successfully seen off would be drug baron Kanryuu and the false Battosai Jin-e, once remorseless killer Kenshin (Takeru Satoh) has moved into the dojo run by Kaoru (Emi Takei) and made a seemingly joyful life alongside Kaoru’s only pupil, the boy Yahiko (Kaito Oyagi), the doctor Megumi (Yu Aoi) and loud mouth Sanosuke (Munekata Aoki). However, the happy family’s peace is about to be rudely interrupted as an envoy from the Home Minister arrives and requests a private meeting with Kenshin. It seems an old enemy once believed dead has been discovered to be alive and currently plotting terrible vengeance against the new government in Kyoto. Shishio’s skills are matched only by Kenshin and so the government wishes to make use of his services once again to stop this new threat to the development of the modernising Japan. However, Kenshin has laid down his sword and dedicated his life to atoning for the lives he took as a warrior – will he really return to the life of a wandering swordsman? Originally reluctant and very much against the wishes of Kaoru, a tragic event finally convinces Kenshin he has no choice but to stop Shishio whatever the cost!

Even more so that the first film, Rurouni Kenshin 2: Kyoto Inferno is set against the backdrop of a Japan in the middle of earth shattering cultural shifts. The age of the Shogun is over, there are no more samurai or feudal loyalties to fulfil. This fresh new world of possibilities has no place left in it for the men who fought so bravely to bring it into being. Some, like Kenshin, hung up their swords and set themselves into atoning for the violence of the past by vowing to build a better, kinder, future. Others, however, like Shishio, were left with nothing other than the desire to return to a world where their skills mattered – the familiar world of lords and castles and glorious battles. Kenshin and Shishio are two sides of the same coin – light and shadow. Having been assassinated and thrown on a funeral pyre before miraculously surviving thanks to a fortuitous fall of snow, Shishio has made fire his very own symbol and primary weapon of attack. This new world is a hell for him and along with his bandage clad gang of followers, he’s about to plunge all of Japan into a fiery abyss too.

The first instalment was also notable for its fairly high production values and if anything, Kyoto Inferno even improves upon the original film’s impressive aesthetics. Fire in particular has often proved something of a bug bear for the modern action film and as you might expect from the title Kyoto Inferno is jam packed with flaming action. From its extremely striking opening scene, Kyoto Inferno lays on some of the most complex and beautifully filmed action sequences to be seen in a Japanese film in quite some time. Where it falls down slightly is bound up with its nature as the first part of a two part film as it is does begin to pile on the sub plots and risks becoming overloaded while the original gang (and particularly Yu Aoi’s doctor Megumi) end up with relatively little to do. Likewise, as with the first film the more manga-like elements such as some of the overly broad comedy or a couple of characters who are just the wrong sort of outrageous don’t quite fit with the otherwise classical feeling of the film though fans of the manga franchise may appreciate this attempt at remaining faithful to the source material.

In many ways the Rurouni Kenshin movies are just fluffy mainstream action films (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but Rurouni Kenshin 2: Kyoto Inferno is that rarest of beasts in that it manages to build on the foundations of the first film to become something greater with the result that it even helps to elevate the original. Of course, this largely hinges on how well the last part of the trilogy, appropriately entitled The Legend Ends will fare but suffice to say the first two thirds have stood it in very good stead. Action packed but with a tightly plotted storyline, convincing characters, good performances and high production values Rurouni Kenshin 2: Kyoto Inferno offers everything that’s good about blockbusters without any of the drawbacks. In fact the only real problem that the film presents is the likely long wait until The Lengend Ends finally arrives!

 

This is out in UK cinemas from Friday 28th November 2014 when it’ll play all these cool places:

  • Cineworld Enfield
  • Cineworld Crawley
  • Cineworld Sheffield
  • Cineworld West India Quay
  • Cineworld Glasgow RS
  • Cineworld Cardiff
  • Cineworld Stevenage
  • Cineworld Bolton
  • Vue Piccadilly (London)

Well worth seeing on the big screen, might even be better than the first one!