by Andrea Grunert

A murder is commissioned: that is the starting point of Takashi Miike’s Shield of Straw (Wara no tate, Japan, 2013). The billionaire Ninagawa (Tsutomo Yamazaki), whose 7-year-old granddaughter has been raped and murdered, offers a reward of one billion yen to anyone who kills the suspected murderer Kunihide Kiyomaru (Tatsuya Fujiwara). When Kiyomaru, on the run, narrowly escapes an attempt on his life, he turns himself in to the police. Inspector Kazuki Mekari (Takao Ōsawa) of the Security Police and his subordinate Atsuko Shiraiwa (Nanako Matsushima) are assigned the task of escorting him from Fukuoka on the island of Kyushu to Tokyo. They are joined by two colleagues from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police and a police officer from Fukuoka Prefecture. The journey of 1,200 kilometres becomes a life-threatening undertaking that not all the members of this team will survive. With the whole of Japan eager to get their hands on the bounty, the police officers themselves are in the role of the hunted.
Shield of Straw is the adaptation of the mangaka Kazuhiro Kiuchi’s eponymous first novel, published in 2004 (1). Takashi Miike, one of the most prolific Japanese filmmakers of the last thirty years, has made use of a great variety of topics and genres including jidai geki (13 Assassins/Jūsannin no shikaku, 2010 and Hara-kiri: Death of a Samurai/Ichimei, 2011), fantasy films rooted in Japanese mythology (The Great Yokai War/Yōkai Daisensō, 2005) as well as directing the Western-inspired Sukiyaki Western Django (Sukiyaki Uesutan Jango, 2007), and Ichi, the Killer (Koroshiya Ichi, 2001), a mixture of crime film and comedy. Many of these works include graphic violence and feature a flamboyant style. At first glance, Shield of Straw might appear to be a straightforward thriller, but, both entertaining and thought-provoking, it is an original work on the rule of law and revenge, duty and trauma that also offers reflections on human nature. As in 13 Assassins and Hara-kiri: Death of a Samurai, Miike approaches moral questions that arise in an extreme situation.

The law called into question
Shield of Straw contains numerous action sequences – wild shootings and spectacular mass scenes – and is full of unexpected turns and moments of great suspense. A huge contingent of police escort Kiyomaru and his five guards. However, the first incidents occur on the motorway in the metropolitan area of Fukuoka, where an intimidating battalion of several hundred policemen are massed to manage the transfer and line the route (2).
The five police officers whose task is to conduct Kiyomaru safely to Tokyo all have different views on their mission. Kamihashi (Kento Nagayama), the youngest of them, expresses most openly his hatred of the murderer. Shiraiwa says, jokingly, that the team is the closest to the one billion yen. However, she threatens Kiyomaru twice with her pistol and seems eager to kill him. Okumura (Gorō Nagayama) says that he would not mind if someone killed Kiyomaru. Sekiya (Masatō Ibu), the police officer from Fukuoka, is a reserved man and shows less contempt. However, he makes no secret of the fact that he understands Ninagawa’s hatred of Kiyomaru and his desire for revenge. It is Mekari, the main protagonist, who is the one almost obsessively single-minded in his determination to protect Kiyomaru at all costs. His sense of duty sometimes collides with that of the three other men, who are not security officers. Each of the five officers having their own idea of the law and justice, the delicate balance between good and evil is continually threatened (3). Repeatedly challenged by people who want to get their hands on the bounty – fellow policemen, yakuza and civilians – the suspicion that one of the five could be a traitor complicates their mission.
The five police officers are required to risk their lives for a murderer – a situation at the core of the moral dilemma addressed in Shield of Straw. There is no doubt about Kiyomaru’s guilt. Portrayed as a completely detestable little man who revels in violence as long as he is not the target himself, he commits another hideous crime in the course of the action, killing Shiraiwa. He is clearly a psychopath who even enjoys the journey, observing his guards closely and provoking them incessantly. Before the murder of Ninagawa’s granddaughter, Kiyomaru had already been sentenced for the rape and murder of a child, and the film emphasizes his pathological interest in young girls when at one point he escapes from his guards. Trying to hide in a small village, his attention is caught by a little girl sleeping on a veranda and it is only the sudden appearance of Mekari that stops him sexually abusing her. Tatsuya Fujiwara’s performance – his malicious grin and obvious enjoyment when witnessing a man being shot – contribute to the portrayal of a criminal who arouses only revulsion.
That Kiyomaru is guilty of murder and highly dangerous are undisputed facts. However, the legal situation is complicated by Ninagawa’s appeal for his murder. By intriguing against Kiyomaru, he reveals his mistrust of the police and the legal system in general. The novel makes it clear that, according to Japanese law, Kiyomaru will not face the death penalty (4), but in Miike’s film, one of the characters states that the murderer will definitely be sentenced to death. However, Ninagawa has taken the law into his own hands, demanding reciprocal justice. His action is not simply a matter of revenge – if someone kills Kiyomaru, that person will face trial for this offence.
Kamihashi’s feeling of disgust for the murderer leads him to threaten Kiyomaru. The father of Kiyomaru’s first victim tries to kill him, but while he acts out of hatred and desperation, greed seems to be the strongest motive for most of those who seek to take Kiyomaru’s life. The hundreds of police officers securing the route for Kiyomaru in Fukuoka and the police units dispatched to the train stations where the train with Kiyomaru and his five guards stops are particularly well-equipped with firearms. They pose a bigger threat than civilians, and high-ranking police officers in Tokyo are even involved in a plan to sabotage the transfer.
In his novel, Kiuchi includes lengthy descriptions of the Japanese security police force to which Mekari and Shiraiwa belong, emphasizing that even if it was established following the American model, it adheres to a policy of non-aggression (5) and it is Ninagawa’s revenge plot that makes it necessary to equip with firearms the five officers travelling with Kiyomaru and also the other police mobilized for the transfer. Miike does not pursue this aspect, leaving it to the viewer to understand the difference between the situation described in the film and the usual practice of the Japanese police. Whereas in the novel Shiraiwa is male, Mekari’s junior and a rather carefree and slightly naïve character, in the film Shiraiwa is not only a woman but also a single mother. Criticism of the difficult role of women in the Japanese police force is hinted at when it emerges that Shiraiwa as a single mother has no prospect of promotion despite her experience and expertise.

Loyalty and obsession
The question why one should protect a villain and risk one’s life for him is frequently posed, and it is Mekari who tirelessly insists on the security officers’ duty to escort Kiyomaru safely to his destination. Giri, which can be translated as loyalty, duty or obedience, was a cardinal value of the samurai-ruled Tokugawa period (1603-1868). In the era of the Tokugawa shogun, collective honour and the protection of both the lord’s and the clan’s honour became more important than seeking personal reward (6). The culture of the warrior class, based on honour, still lingers in Japan’s postwar entrepreneurial culture as well as in institutions such as the police force. His immediate superior says to Mekari that his first and foremost duty is to safeguard the honour of the police, and Japan’s strongly hierarchical system is reflected in the scene in which Mekari, Shiraiwa and the two police officers from Tokyo have to bow to their superiors. Just how much Mekari has internalized the ideal of honour is revealed in the sequence in which Shiraiwa threatens Kiyomaru with her pistol, prepared to kill him. Mekari prevents her from pulling the trigger, appealing to her sense of honour.
Even if questions of loyalty and duty are deeply embedded in Japanese culture, the principled Mekari is also described as a true professional who recalls American counterparts, familiar from cop films. Mekari is an extremely competent security officer, is intelligent, an excellent shot, an attentive observer and a good strategist. He values professional honour and duty and therefore does everything in his power to ensure that the child murderer has a safe journey to Tokyo. Although showing the least revulsion of the perpetrator and his crime, he too is torn between duty and feelings of revenge. However, unlike Ninagawa, who just wants revenge, Mekari consistently defends the rule of law, expressing his disgust at Ninagawa’s interference, which causes chaos and claims lives. Despite sharing with the elderly billionaire a similar experience of loss, Mekari enjoins him to withdraw the bounty offer and face legal consequences.
Contradictions between the law and the notion of justice as well as the topic of revenge are at the core of numerous cop films produced in Hollywood, Donald Siegel’s Dirty Harry (1971) being one of the most famous examples of the genre. In this first of five films with the San Francisco-based detective Harry Callahan played by Clint Eastwood, the legal system is depicted as inefficient and not trustworthy, and in a final showdown, Harry shoots dead the serial killer Scorpio in a situation set up to make it seem a legitimate act of self-defence. Acting as a police officer in the line of duty, Callahan is portrayed as a modern vigilante who defends a system weakened by bureaucracy in which murderers seem to have more rights than victims. Repeatedly disregarding orders, Callahan is notorious for his independent actions, but unlike him, Mekari does not take the law into his own hands or exceed the limits of his power (7). He only once disobeys his immediate superior Ōki (Hirotarō Honda) by not taking Kiyomaru to the nearest police station but instead stubbornly insisting on delivering the prisoner to the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police in Tokyo. He realizes that obeying Ōki’s order would result in Kiyomaru’s death. This determination is a further character trait that Mekari shares with Callahan and other American loner heroes, a determination that borders on obsession.
Keeping strictly within the law and his duty as a security officer who protects his charge – whether politician, VIP or murderer – Mekari saves Kiyomaru from a beating when Kamihashi, incessantly provoked by Kiyomaru, loses his temper. However, when he says: “No hitting, while we’re here”, Mekari suggests that he is not totally against violence and that, at the bottom of his heart, he hates Kiyomaru as much as Kamihashi does. His remark also hints at a wider social context in which police violence is not out of the ordinary, something that is stated more clearly in the novel.
A highly significant similar experience shared by Mekari and Callahan is that fact that both have lost their wives killed by a drunken driver. Without exploring Callahan’s life story, the mention of his tragic loss partially explains his obsessive dedication to his job. This makes the character part of Hollywood’s standard repertoire, but Callahan’s past experience and unresolved grief give him a greater depth and are also a clue to his aggressiveness. Miike explores this aspect of grief, showing Mekari in his flat where he behaves as if his wife were still alive. Numerous references in the novel reveal how much Mekari still lives in the past, unable to overcome his wife’s death. For him, time has stood still since she was killed. Kiuchi also repeatedly refers to Mekari’s death wish, expressed in inner monologues, but Miike only suggests it, Mekari saying that he has only been able to survive the last three years by focusing on his duty as a security guard. He claims that he is following what his wife once said, namely that his job is to protect others. Later, he states that she never said such a thing and that he invented it to be able to cope with his loss. In the world of his imagination, he has often killed the hit-and-run driver, and he admits to being the one of the five police officers who most wants to see Kiyomaru dead (8).
As a security officer, Mekari acts as a living shield for Kiyomaru, protecting him with his body on a number of occasions. However, the motif of the “shield” has a further meaning in Miike’s film – Mekari’s professionalism and determination to see the job through to the end are a shield for his wounded soul, a shield guarding him against his trauma that also prevents him from seeking revenge and breaking the law (9). Fighting their inner demons, both Callahan and Mekari tread the narrow path between good and evil. Their job alone is a means to shield them from turning into murderers.

Action and reflection
Kiuchi uses inner monologue to reveal Mekari’s psychological condition, his death wish and his inability to come to terms with his wife’s death. Miike contents himself with allusions and references in dialogues to reveal Mekari’s past and inner torment. In one sequence, the father of Kiyomaru’s first victim tries to kill the murderer of his daughter. Mekari hits the hysterical man in the stomach, forcing him to collapse. He then bends down to the man lying on the ground and apologizes to him, speaking in a soft, almost tender voice. The look on his face filled with pain shows his understanding for the man. Ōsawa’s restrained but powerful acting reveals how much Mekari is a multifaceted and even mysterious character who loses control only once when, towards the end of the film, he cannot bear Kiyomaru’s cruelty any longer and batters him with his fists while screaming out his pain and anger.
Acting contributes considerably to the portrayal of the characters in the film and clever mise-en-scène supports both the acting and the settings. Many of the scenes take place in narrow spaces – a room in the hospital, the interior of the carriage in the bullet train. Miike makes superb use of depth, with people in the foreground, middle ground and background. Long dialogue scenes are enlivened by the characters changing position within the frame. They give the actors the opportunity to communicate through their gaze, which is as telling as words. Dialogue scenes with close-ups, looking impressive in the widescreen format, alternate with fast-paced action. And shots of the train speeding through the countryside repeatedly create breaks in the action and serve as time jumps, which are numerous in the film. For example, when Mekari offers an alternative to the vehicle convoy that has turned out to be a fiasco, his strategy is not expressed verbally and instead its implementation is shown. First by a single shot of the convoy starting to move again, and then, after another cut, by a shot of Kiyomaru and the five officers boarding a train in a railway station. These two shots are enough to understand Mekari’s plan – the convoy continuing as a decoy whereas Kiyomaru is taken to Tokyo on a bullet train and accompanied only by Mekari and his four colleagues.

In conclusion
In the course of the action, a situation arises in which killing Kiyomaru becomes legal. A rumour spreads that Mekari and Shiraiwa are Kiyomaru’s hostages and killing him would now be considered a legitimate act. Ninagawa’s plan for revenge now seems to be succeeding, as if he had foreseen such a situation. But Mekari stands firm, demonstrating to Ninagawa, that money cannot buy everything and that his attempt to circumvent and bend the law is wrong. Mekari’s determined pursuit of his duty prevents further transgressions of the law as a result of the elderly billionaire’s interventions..
Shield of Straw does not express criticism of the death penalty and gives a rather stereotypical representation of the child murderer as a monster. However, it is also a film that deals with the fragility of the law and with individual and collective responsibility – a topic important to Miike that is also addressed in 13 Assassins and in Hara-kiri: Death of a Samurai. Concerned with human feelings and human behaviour in an extreme situation, Shield of Straw is about the elusive dividing line between good and evil, about the fragility of this simplistic view and about trauma and revenge. The film’s final shot of Mekari and Shiraiwa’s young son reveals that the main protagonist’s physical and mental recovery from his ordeal has not been achieved by his relentless endeavours but is rather the result of a profound change in his life that embraces the fulfilment of duty but also human concern.

Notes
(1) Kiuchi is best known for his manga Be-Bop High School (Bi Bappu Hai Sukūru, 1983-2003).
(2) In the press conference at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013, where Shield of Straw was presented in competition, Miike explained that the scenes taking place in the bullet train were shot in Taiwan because the Japanese railway did not allow shooting in Japan for security reasons. The fact that Taiwan and Japan have the same high-speed train system was also helpful. The scenes on the motorway, requiring a great number of extras, were also shot in Taiwan because it was not possible to close motorways in Japan and feature such a large number of police vehicles. https://www.festival-cannes.com/f/wara-no-tate/
(3) See also Takao Ōsawa talking about this topic in the film’s press conference at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013. https://www.festival-cannes.com/f/wara-no-tate/
(4) Capital punishment is still a possible sentence in Japan and is still enforced. However, this is often after more than two killings or after a particularly horrendous crime.
(5) In the film, this topic is touched on by Shiraiwa wondering whether security officers will use firearms for the first time in Japan’s history.
(6) As Eiko Ikegami writes, “The collective honor of the samurai class was in fact the symbolic architectural foundation of the Tokugawa bakuhan state.” (The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1995, p. 212)

(7) See Ikegami, ibid., p. 212-213.
(8) In the novel, Mekari’s wife has died of cancer. The film implies a desire for revenge because of the fact that Mekari’s wife was the victim of a hit-and-run accident. Her violent death is, moreover, all the more tragic because she was pregnant.
(9) Unlike Callahan, who has killed in the past and at the end of the film shoots the murderer Scorpio, Mekari, who is practising shooting when he first appears in the film, has never killed, nor does he kill Kiyomaru.

 

by Andrea Grunert

The idea to watch Masayuki Suo’s A Terminal Trust (Tsui no shintaku, Japan, 2012) was born out of interest for the subject of medicine and the representation of doctors in Japanese cinema. The presence of distinguished actors such as Tamiyo Kusakari, Kōji Yakusho, Takao Ōsawa and Tadanobu Asano also served to pique my interest in the film. Nevertheless, I was unprepared for the profound effect A Terminal Trust would have on me, leaving me emotionally unsettled and haunted by its content and aesthetical beauty. This impact makes me appreciate the opportunity to share a few thoughts about Suo’s film on the Shomingeki blog.

Medical doctor and patient
A Terminal Trust is based on the short story “Tsui no shintaku” written by Tatsuki Saku. It deals with a case of euthanasia or rather “death with dignity” (1) provided to a terminally ill man. The story refers to cases of euthanasia in Japan, mainly the Kawasaki-Kyodo-Hospital-Case and the Tokai-University-Hospital-Case (2), the latter being mentioned in the film.
The main character of A Terminal Trust is the general practitioner Ayano Orii, played by Kusakari, who starred with Yakusho in Suo’s Shall We Dance? (Sharu wi dansu?, 1996). Orii is portrayed as a competent and sensitive doctor, a truly caring person. One of her patients is Shinzō Egi (Yakusho), a man in his early sixties who has been suffering from asthma for many years and whose deteriorating condition is becoming life threatening. During a conversation with Orii, he tells her that he does not want to be kept alive by tubes and begs her to let him die with dignity. A few months later, he is admitted, in a coma, to the hospital where Orii works. Without regaining consciousness, his breathing has to be assisted by machines. When Orii discovers that her patient has internal bleeding caused by a stomach ulcer, presumably due to stress, she asks Egi’s wife (Kumi Nakamura) for her consent to let her husband die.
Divided into two narratively and aesthetically distinct parts, the film begins three years after Egi’s death, when the judicial authorities started dealing with it. Orii is summoned by the public prosecutor Tsukahara (Ōsawa) who is in charge of the case. The first part, which lasts about an hour and thirty-four minutes, is mainly a long flashback consisting of Orii’s memories of various encounters between her and her patient, Egi, and of her private life. It also includes some sequences showing Orii in the waiting room of the prosecutor’s office and of Tsukahara in his office. The second part, which lasts about fifty minutes, focuses almost exclusively on Orii’s interrogation by the prosecutor.
The first part is mainly about the two protagonists Orii and Egi, and the relationship they develop during Egi’s frequent hospital stays. Egi is a well-educated man who likes European classical music, has been to Italy and speaks a little Italian. He is also a sensitive man who cannot help but notice how much Orii suffers from emotional stress. It is not certain whether he had heard the rumours about Orii that may have circulated in the hospital. She had attempted suicide after a failed love affair with her colleague, Takai (Asano). Egi lends Orii a CD of Giacomo Puccini’s opera Gianni Schicci and draws her attention to the aria “O mio babbino caro” (“Oh my dear papa”). As she listens to the aria, sung by a woman who expresses her wish to die if she is not allowed to marry the man she loves, Orii begins to cry. Later, Egi explains to her that the song is not about pure love, but is mere pretence. The singer mentions suicide only to frighten her father. Orii has to face her true intentions regarding her own suicide attempt. Was it just a show to frighten her unfaithful lover, the young and ambitious Takai? Instead, her suicide scene shows her deep confusion and desperation. Moreover, Takai’s behaviour is obviously that of an egoist, who has abused her feelings for him.
Doctor and patient develop feelings for each other without ever crossing the line into love or even sex. Their true feelings remain unspoken. It is all in the imagination, as the viewer decides whether they love each other. In one scene, Orii takes over the nurse’s job and washes the unconscious Egi, the only moment of physical intimacy, but one that also reveals the doctor’s helplessness and humility in the face of a situation in which she is unable to give the patient anymore medical help. Mutual respect and understanding characterize this very special relationship, which does not require words. In this relationship, in which neither of the two expects anything from the other, both can be free. Egi confides in his doctor about a childhood experience from the last days of the war in Manchuria, when his younger sister died from a bullet in the stomach. Only five years old at the time, he witnessed her long death and his parents’ despair.
The traumatic childhood memories and the reference to an unresolved war past exemplify the death motif that runs through the film. Orii’s suicide attempt is another moment in which death is evoked. Her love affair with her arrogant colleague Takai is a poisonous one. Takai insists on keeping it secret so as not to jeopardize his career. In one scene, they have sex in a hospital storeroom. After her suicide attempt, Takai cruelly dumps her.
Focusing on a handful of protagonists, A Terminal Trust presents highly nuanced human portraits in a mixture of poetic moments and detailed depictions of medical treatment, such as in the scene in which Orii’s stomach is pumped and also when she removes the tubes connecting Egi to the life-prolonging machine.
The memory sketches in which Orii meets Egi in the hospital and their last meeting on the riverbank, Egi’s favourite spot, form the main settings in the first part, during which Egi’s health deteriorates alarmingly. At one dramatic moment, he is struggling desperately to catch a breath. The chronological structure of the flashbacks, showing Egi and Orii, is broken by the scene set in Manchuria in 1945 – a flashback in the flashback – and some short sequences in the prosecutor’s office where Orii is summoned by Tsukahara. Waiting to be questioned, she recalls various moments with Egi, her love affair with Takai, her suicide attempt and Egi’s last moments.
The pace is generally slow, with the exception of the stomach pumping and the few scenes in which Egi is shown having severe breathing problems including his dramatic death scene. These scenes are filmed in long, fragmented segments with numerous close-ups of the procedures. These long painful scenes reveal how close doctor and patient are, both experiencing similar moments of stress and suffering.
The camera lingers on the characters for a long time. There are numerous scenes without dialogue or music. Music is diegetic when Orii listens to the opera CD. In a few scenes, soft piano melodies are used as background music. Long takes and slow movements, frequent shots of empty places – at the river bank, in the hospital or in the prosecutor’s office – and overwhelming silence create moments of great intensity. The employment of music and silence is particularly effective in illustrating Suo’s delicate handling of the relationship between Orii and Egi, making the deep understanding they have for each other emotionally palpable for the viewer.
The restrained acting of both Yakusho and Kusakari underlines the deep humanity of these two characters. Yakusho’s Egi is a friendly and caring man who does not want to be a burden to his family or his employer. This may be in keeping with the usual behaviour expected in Japanese society, of the individual submitting to the collective. Yakucho and Kusakari play their roles with great dignity, perfectly matching the slow rhythm of the film. One could say that the human portraits in this first part are not painted in vivid colours. The reduced palette of delicate blues, greys and beiges is reminiscent of watercolours. They create an atmosphere that evokes the fragility of the human figures and the transience of life.
While waiting for the prosecutor, the sky is leaden grey and the pouring rain that Orii observes as she looks outside adds to the sense of loss and grief that pervades the film. The river landscape that Egi loves so much reminds him of the seemingly endless expanse of the Manchurian steppe of his early childhood. The water flows seamlessly into the horizon, but it is as grey as the sky. In the scene where Orii and Egi meet on the embankment, we also see an industrial landscape, a power station or a huge factory, chimneys and towers on the other side of the river, blocking the view into the distance and signalling hopelessness. It should not be forgotten that the pollution caused by industrialisation has very negative effects on Egi’s health. A feeling of despair, heightened by ugliness, is also evoked by repeated shots of a tangle of pipes under a row of windows at the hospital.
The tubes and wires that connect Egi to various machines, and the tube inserted into Orii’s nose to pump her stomach, also have a menacing quality that seems to contrast with their humanity. There are some ingeniously composed shots, such as the one where Orii is reflected in the I.V. tube on her arm after her suicide attempt. The human being appears as a tiny figure in the infinity of existence, fully revealing Orii’s vulnerability.

The doctor and the prosecutor
The second part of about fifty minutes takes place almost exclusively in the office of the prosecutor. The spatial unity is broken just once and only for a very short time when Orii goes to the ladies’ room. And the last shots show her arrest after which she is led down a long corridor. At first glance, the mise-en-scène of this second part seems less varied. However, it is not less intense than the first one. On the contrary, the film’s oppressive mood reaches its climax in the interrogation scene. There are long takes of the characters, but Suo makes clever use of the restrained space. Editing, framing and camera movements, including travellings and panorama shots, add enough vivacity to the long scene to make it both appealing and unsettling. There is also the prosecutor’s young male assistant (Yoshihiko Hosoda), recording the interrogation. He observes Tsukahara’s manoeuvres with changing reactions, often taken aback by his superior’s pitiless attitude towards Orii.
The intimate nature of the interrogation scene and the slow pace, perfectly suited to the dramatic situation, create a constant tension, which is heightened by the lightening or rather the darkness that invades the room. At the beginning, the shutters are half-closed, letting in the dim light of a November afternoon. By the time the interview ends, night has already set in. The washed-out colours of the first part contrast with the gloom of the interrogation scene which creates a strong sense of impenetrability and hopelessness.
The interrogation in the dark, closed space, which creates a constant feeling of desperation and instability, is filmed as a duel between the prosecutor and Orii, one fought with unequal weapons. Orii is nothing more than Tsukahara’s prey. In one of the film’s first scenes, the outcome of the interrogation is hinted at the moment a pair of handcuffs, in one of the drawers of Tsukahara’s desk, is framed in a close-up. At the end of the film, Orii leaves the office in handcuffs. The highly allusive image from the beginning finds its conclusion. Tsukahara does everything in his power to have Orii charged with murder. Although she fulfilled Egi’s fervent wish to die with dignity, she has, in fact broken Japanese law. Euthanasia can be carried out when death is imminent and unavoidable or if the patient is in excruciating pain and there are no alternative methods of pain relief. There must also be a written statement of the patient’s wishes regarding the shortening of his life (3). Egi, however, only stated in a conversation with Orii that he did not want life prolonging measures if he was no longer conscious. Nor did any of the other reasons exactly apply to Egi’s case, as Tsukahara makes clear, even though Orii refers to his mental anguish and the stomach ulcer as a symptom of stress. Tsukahara insists on the lack of a written statement and the fact that Egi never expressed his wish to die with dignity to his family. He considers this act of mercy killing to be unacceptable. Katsunori Kai, a professor of law at Waseda University, writes: “This conduct is considered as a homicide in Japan (4).” Tsukahara acts within the law, but his portrayal as an extremely manipulative man who does not stop asking leading questions and constantly tries to intimidate Orii, makes him seen almost like the villain. He has already passed judgment on Orii who is at his mercy. Since he intends to build a murder case from the start – the arrest warrant is already prepared in a drawer of his desk –, all he has to do is wear Orii down so that she falls into his trap. He starts by deliberately making her wait a long time.
Besides Orii and Egi, the prosecutor is the most important character in the film. Instead of the gentle Egi, Orii now has to deal with the aggressive masculinity of an authoritarian personality. Ōsawa plays Tsukahara with fascinating intensity as an ice-cold, calculating man accustomed to power. The film gives him plenty of room for a multifaceted performance which dominates the long interrogation scene. At times he smiles smugly, at others he lords his power over Orii in anger, shouting at her, accusing her of lying, humiliating her and cleverly twisting her words, to the point where she finally breaks down in tears. But he is also an attentive observer, and not completely insensitive. When Orii mentions that she knows the feeling of helplessness that arises when a patient has a tube inserted or is unable to communicate his very feelings to the doctor, he immediately understands that she has attempted suicide. And he too, has thoughtful moments, which are reflected in his wounded expression. But he recovers very quickly and continues with his strategy to corner Orii. In a few moments, Ōsawa manages an almost imperceptible change of mood.

Some concluding thoughts
Tsukahara says dryly: “You confessed to murder“. Under Japanese law, the public prosecutor has considerable power, and Tsukahara is depicted as a man eager to use it. He insists that he is only interested in facts, facts that will allow him to accuse Orii of murder. This portrayal of the prosecutor as a villain makes it easier for the viewer to identity with Orii. However, Suo does not deny that Tsukahara acts according to the law. Moreover, the flashback showing Egi, having regained consciousness and struggling to breathe after Orii has removed the endotracheal tube, is an extremely violent moment that also casts some doubt on her judgment as a doctor who told Egi’s wife that the action would lead to a quick death. Suo’s sympathy for his female protagonist does not avoid the ethical and medical aspects of her decision, and depicts Egi’s death as a moment of great pain.
At the end, a text states that an entry in Egi’s diary was found and presented at Orii’s trial. In it, Egi said that he was entrusting Orii with his life so that he could die with dignity. The court accepted this as an expression of the patient’s refusal to have his life artificially prolonged. Nevertheless, the doctor was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and four years’ probation for violating the law, because the court did not consider Egi’s condition to be hopeless. However, the portrayal of Egi’s horrific death is also a burden that Orii has to live with and which has not let her unaffected. Without exploring the moral questions raised by euthanasia through dialogue, Suo insists on depicting emotions and his female protagonist’s inner torment. The gloomy atmosphere in Tsukahara’s office is not only related to the negative portrayal of the representative of justice who uses all his power to create a murder case. The darkness is also like a visual symbol of Orii, torn between her desire to fulfil Egi’s last wish and her feelings of guilt.

Notes
(1)Katsunori Kai points to the fact that Japanese law distinguishes between “euthanasia” and “death with dignity”. See Katsunori Kai, “Euthanasia and Death with Dignity in Japanese Law”, Weekly Bulletin of Comparative Law, 27,3 (2009),p.2. https://www.waseda.jp/folaw/icl/assets/uploads/2014/05/A02859211-00-000270001.pdf

(2) See ibid., p. 5-7 for further details.

(3) See op.cit. for further details, p. 2.

(4) See op. cit., p. 2.

Grunert-Iseya-Image-03

by Andrea Grunert

In Sono Sion’s (1) The Land of Hope (Kibō no kuni, 2012), set in the aftermath of the Triple Disaster that hit the northeast of Japan on 11th March 2011, a general shot shows inhabitants evacuated from the region affected by the earthquake and tsunami and the subsequent accident at the nuclear power plant Fukushima Daiichi. They are crowded together in a huge space that is presumably a gym. Suddenly a young man jumps up, throwing himself on the person standing next to him, whom he accuses of defending the operators of the power plant. This angry young man is played by Iseya Yūsuke, and it is his only appearance in the film but a highly significant one, recalling the fact that he often plays rebel characters and, apparently, also likes to leave well-trodden paths beyond the screen.

Iseya and Kore-Eda
Iseya’s work cannot be reduced to acting. He is also a director (2), artist, model, social activist and businessman. Born in 1976, Iseya holds a Master of Arts degree from Tokyo University of the Arts (Tōkyō Geijutsu Daigaku). A young man with a variety of talents, he attended acting classes in New York. As a male model, he worked for famous brands such as Gucci, BMW, Louis Vuitton, Dior and Yebisu Beer among others. At the age of twenty-nine, he directed his first film, Kakuto (2007), and four years later his second and so far only other film Fish on Land (Seiji: Riku no sakana, 2011). In 2006, he launched the “Rebirth Project”, a social contribution initiative focusing on sustainable development that has been involved in a great variety of activities from the reuse of materials to the support of local communities, for example in the Tōhoku region following the catastrophe in March 2011. Disappointed that Japanese celebrities are severely gagged by talent agencies, Iseya founded his own agency as part of the Rebirth Project. He also contributed to the establishment of Loohcs High School, a private school that opened in 2019, the school’s mission being “to nurture independent thought and action for posterity” (3), an aim that is in perfect accord with Iseya’s attitude towards life.
In After Life (Wandafaru raifu, 1998), the second feature film directed by Kore-Eda Hirokazu and Iseya’s debut as an actor, people who have recently died arrive in a place that looks like an administration building or a former school. Each of these deceased is required to choose one memory, and this memory is then re-enacted and filmed before the person is admitted to the Hereafter, where he/she has to stay forever with this one memory. Iseya plays one of the deceased and the only one who, according to the credits, keeps his real name: Iseya Yūsuke, this being one of the aspects that distinguish him from the other dead. Unlike them, he also defies the rules of the game by refusing to make a choice. Moreover, he initiates a discussion on the very idea of choosing just one memory and concludes that those in charge of the Hereafter should reconsider their system. The character in the film is described as an unemployed worker and 22 years old, the actor’s real age in 1998. His clothes – parka and leather trousers – and his wild hairstyle are clear indications of his rebellious nature. However, it is the acting more than anything else that reveals his character, with his very first appearance already hinting at his status as an outsider. He remains aloof from the other deceased standing alone at the window with his back towards them before turning around and giving a look of appraisal to each of the others in the room, his facial expression and body language expressing resistance.
In a series of sequences, several of the deceased are questioned by employees at the mysterious centre helping them to choose a memory. The camera frames the interviewees sitting behind a desk. Iseya is filmed in the same way but his acting is far more expressive than that of his fellow dead. He is extremely lively and continually gesticulates, he tugs at his ear, bursts into laughter and behaves in a disrespectful manner by unabashedly putting his feet on the chair when addressing his interviewers. During a conversation with Watanabe, an older member of the group of the dead who is sitting on a bench, Iseya keeps walking around him while toying with a small branch he has picked up from the floor.
Iseya plays a similarly extrovert character in Distance (Disutansu, 2001), Kore-Eda’s next film. Kore-Eda had originally intended to shoot a road movie on the topic of lying with Iseya and Iura Arata, two of the actors from After Life (4). Iseya and Iura Arata both have roles in Distance, but the project – although the topic of secrecy and lying remains – changed after Kore-Eda became interested in the way the Japanese media and Japanese society reacted to Jōyū Fumihiro, the former public relations officer of the Aum Shinrikyō cult, who was released from prison in 1999 (5). Members of this cult had been responsible for the gas attack in the Tokyo underground in 1995. Distance does not mention Aum or its murderous attack, referring only indirectly to the tragic event that had traumatized Japanese society. The film’s main characters are a group of people whose family members had joined a fictitious cult and participated in the poisoning of Tokyo’s water supply system, which resulted in many deaths. After the attack, the perpetrators apparently committed suicide, their ashes being strewn by surviving members of the cult in a lake close to the place – a small cabin in the woods – where those who committed suicide had spent the last weeks or months of their lives. Since that time, family members of four of the perpetrators meet at the cabin once a year to commemorate the deaths, and Masaru, played by Iseya, is one of these four.
Masaru is a swimming instructor, and he mourns the death of his brother. He and the other protagonists are shown in the cabin in the woods, where they spend the night after their car has been stolen and in flashbacks with their dead relatives. Masaru is the most extrovert of the group, which is joined by Sataka (Asano Tadanobu), a long-time member of the cult, whose motorcycle has also been stolen. The florist Atsushi (Iura Arata) is a quiet young man, the schoolteacher Kiyoka (Natsukawa Yū) an introverted woman, and the sullen Minoru (Terajima Susumu) an employee of a construction company. Sataka keeps in the background, observing the group that he does not really belong to. Masaru, on the other hand, is inquisitive and open towards the others. He keeps on asking questions and is the only one to approach Sataka when he and the other three encounter him in the woods. In the cabin, he is the first to inspect the surroundings, while Sataka sits down on the floor and the others simply stand around.
From the beginning, Masaru is in constant motion. In several early sequences in which the character is introduced, he is shown distributing flyers in a street and enjoying life with his girlfriend. In an arcade, he plays the slot machines enthusiastically with wild movements, clearly having great fun. He seems somewhat immature but is full of self-confidence, emphasized by Iseya’s energetic acting. However, he is far from being superficial. A flashback suggests that he did not fully understand the significance of his brother’s decision to abandon his medical studies and his family and dedicate his entire life to the cult, and later, he tries to hide his grief behind a mask of indifference. One after another, the four mourning protagonists step onto the wooden jetty that leads out onto the lake. Masaru leaves the jetty very quickly – without praying or at least pausing for a moment as the others do. He folds his hands only briefly before turning away. But later that evening, he retreats into the woods alone and plays his suling flute, brought from Indonesia.
One can presume that much of Masaru’s behaviour and dialogue are the contribution of Iseya himself as Distance is based largely on improvisation. As Kore-Eda later explained: “I asked the actors to play without a script. The only information they had was about where we would shoot the film and about the character they played” (6). In his previous film After Life, Kore-Eda had already left much room for creativity, for example in the interviews, during which the dead were filmed facing the camera and in a medium close-up. This kind of framing is an invitation to an actor to fill the static image with life, and Iseya seized this opportunity, making marvellous use of it with a great variety of small gestures and nuanced facial expressions.

Portraits of young men
In Distance, Masaru is the most talkative character, an aspect that underlines his extrovert personality. Indeed, Masaru is as extrovert as the man Iseya himself seems to be, judging from numerous filmed interviews. In both After Life and Distance, his lively acting epitomizes the energy and light-heartedness of youth, making his performance completely natural. This is also the case in his directorial debut Kakuto (2002), produced by Kore-Eda. An animated dream sequence at the beginning of this film establishes a link with After Life. A young man – the protagonist Kijima Ryō (Iseya) – talks about a dream in which he has to keep on running. In Kore-Eda’s film, Iseya had referred to a similar dream, but in Kakuto the dream becomes reality when Ryō, pursued by a revengeful yakuza, is forced to run for his life.
Iseya’s Ryō is a young man who enjoys an apparently carefree life until the night when he loses a package containing drugs that was given to him by a yakuza. The film depicts that fateful night and Ryō’s desperate search for the drugs. Kakuto deals with topics such as drugs and organized crime but it focuses on the lives of young urbanite and suburbanite males in Japan, including the problems they face such as unemployment and disorientation. However, it approaches these topics in a playful way, and Ryō’s aim in life is clearly to have fun.
Although it is reminiscent of Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting (UK, 1996), Kakuto is a highly original work. Iseya, who was twenty-nine years old when he directed the film, tells it from the perspective of someone who is younger and close to the age of his protagonist and the other young men and not from the more distanced viewpoint of an older adult as is often the case with films about young people. Iseya succeeds in portraying the attitude towards life of young upper-middle class Japanese in a very lively and authentic way, Ryō and his friends emerging as full-blown characters and not simply clichés. Iseya plays Ryō in an entirely convincing manner – a hedonistic character who displays a wide range of emotions. When he discovers that he has lost the drugs and imagines the punishment he can expect from the brutal yakuza, Ryō reacts hysterically, looking like a scared rabbit and with the complete opposite of the laid-back attitude he displayed earlier in the film.
Following Kakuto’s portrayals of adolescents and young adults in a refreshing way, Iseya was cast in the early 2000s in more conventional romantic stories such as Honey and Clover (Hachimitsu to kurōba (2006, Takada Masahiro) and Closed Note (Kurōzudo nōto, 2007, Yukisada Isao). Honey and Clover, the adaptation of a manga by Umino Chika (7), centres on the lives of four arts students and on first love. Iseya plays one of the students : Morita, a self-assured young man, who, early in the film, returns from a trip to a country in southeast-Asia. In this film too, Iseya plays a maverick character who, while accepting the conventions of the art business, at the same time refuses to suppress his individuality. At the opening of an exhibition where he presents a huge sculpture, he gets drunk and floors an art critic who made a condescending comment on the work. However, the main reason for this outburst is that Hagumi (Aoi Yū), the young woman he admires, reacted negatively to the art critic’s unfavourable comment. It is because of Hagu’s lack of interest in success and money that Morita later destroys his sculpture. Iseya plays his role – that of a young man who enjoys life but also yearns for fame – with great energy. And, very significantly, when the five main characters take a selfie during a trip to the seaside, Morita is the only one who fools around.
In Closed Note, Iseya, a graduate from Tokyo University of the Arts, also plays an artist – the painter and illustrator Ryō. At first a shy and almost autistic character, his head lowered, his body rigid, Ryō loses this distant attitude, repeatedly displaying intense feelings. Iseya’s fine acting reveals perfectly the development from taciturnity and grief over the death of the woman he loved to renewed artistic creativity.
Manabu, the main character in Negishi Kichitaro’s What the Snow Brings (Yuki no negau koto, 2005), hides his vulnerability behind a mask of arrogance. He returns to his native region, Hokkaido, the northernmost island of the Japanese archipelago (8) after his business goes bankrupt. Penniless and pursued by his creditors, he seeks refuge with his older brother (Satō Kōichi), who trains horses for the Banei Tokachi horse races, a special kind of horse race practised on Hokkaido (9). Iseya’s very natural acting vividly demonstrates a wide range of emotions. The viewer can feel Manabu’s unease in the unfamiliar community of horse trainers. At first he denies all memory of his schooldays that are referred to by a former classmate who now works for his brother. Later, having opened up and accepted his new environment, he is able to rejoice in reliving his memories of school. His attitude towards his brother is at first very aggressive, while his brother in return resents him for cheating their mother of her money and abandoning her. What the Snow Brings is set among people living a harsh life in a hostile and wintry environment. The cold climate is something that the viewer is made to feel, meteorological conditions contributing to the portrait of a vulnerable young man seeking desperately for reconciliation. However, it is Iseya’s restrained and subtle acting that constantly reveals Manabu’s inner torment.

Jidai geki and famous historical figures
Iseya gives proof of his versatility in numerous historical films in which he also often plays outsiders and rebellious individuals. One of the most notable roles in his career is that of Kiga Koyata in Miike Takashi’s 13 Assassins (Jūsan-nin no shikaku, 2010; [10]). In contrast with the typical samurai living according to their strict code of honour, the hunter Koyata is a rebellious character, emphasized by Iseya’s expressive performance. His face and body in constant motion, he creates a flamboyant character who is yet another example of his many fine portrayals of young adults. Koyata’s behaviour is a vivid expression of the gay abandon of youth. For example, when Shinrokurō (Yamada Takeyuki) states he is fed up with the life of a samurai and might become a bandit, emigrate to America and love a woman there, Koyata says laconically: “That sounds good.” The expression on his face at this point shows very clearly that indeed this is something that he too would really like to do.
Both in the cinema and on television, Iseya has played historical figures such as Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Yoshida Shōin, Takasugi Shinsaku and Shirasu Jirō. He plays Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), the first of the three so-called unifiers of Japan, in Ask This of Rikyū (Rikyū ni tazuneyo, 2013, Tanaka Mitsutoshi) as a self-confident, arrogant man, hungry for power. When tea masters present bowls and other tea utensils to him, Nobunaga makes his choice with impatient and imperious gestures, his demeanour always having something brusque about it. Sen no Rikyū (1522-1591), the famous tea master and merchant, has brought only a black lacquered box, which he opens and fills with water. He then aligns it with the full moon, the moon’s reflection appearing in the water. Nobunaga stands at a distance and in the background, leaning proudly and defiantly on his riding crop and watching Rikyū closely. The viewer can sense his curiosity, which is emphasized by Iseya’s intense gaze and by subtle changes in the expression on his face.
In Mitani Kōki’s The Kiyosu Conference (Kiyosu kaigi, 2013; [11]), Iseya plays Nobunaga’s younger brother Nobukane (1548-1614) in a highly amusing way, here revealing his talent for comic roles. He plays him as a nonchalant, rather bored man, his acting underlining the character’s eccentric personality and penchant for individualism. In the television mini-series Lady Nobunaga (Onna Nobunaga, 2013, Takeuchi Hideki), Iseya is cast as Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598), the second of the three unifiers of Japan after a long period of civil war (12), playing him in an equally colourful manner. The tall and handsome Iseya may seem a strange choice for Hideyoshi, who is commonly described as a small man with a wrinkled face that gave rise to his nickname “Monkey”. Iseya is tall but very slim, and in Lady Nobunaga he looks far frailer than the other vassals of Nobunaga and in this respect appropriate for the role physically. And he is also able to wrinkle his face, evoking that of a monkey. In accordance with historical descriptions of Hideyoshi, Iseya plays him as a lively, extrovert character, thereby revealing the difference between Hideyoshi, a man of humble, peasant origins (13), and the other samurai brought up to observe their strict code of conduct.
In the two taiga drama (14) The Legend of Sakamoto Ryōma (Ryōmaden, 2010) and Burning Flower (Hana moyu, 2015), Iseya has important supporting roles. Both series are set in the 19th century in the so-called Bakumatsu era (1853-1868). In The Legend of Sakamoto Ryōma, he plays Takasugi Shinsaku (1839-1867), a samurai who contributed significantly to the ending of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial power, and in Burning Flower, he is cast as Yoshida Shōin (1830-1859). Iseya plays Takasugi as a strong-willed character, once again a maverick who does not care for social conventions. He displays a wide range of emotions, revealing not only Takasugi’s hedonistic and heroic side but also his struggle against tuberculosis, to which he eventually succumbs. Ryōma (Fukuyama Masaharu) visits Takasugi, who has fled his domain, in his hiding place in Nagasaki. Takasugi seems full of energy and talks happily about his plan to travel to England but suddenly starts coughing, claiming that it is only a cold. However, a slight shadow appears on his face and he looks serious and sad for a very brief moment but long enough to suggest that he knows how seriously ill he really is.
The main protagonist in Burning Flower is Fumi (Inoue Mao), a younger sister of Yoshida Shōin, and here Iseya plays another Japanese revolutionary of the 19th century (15). Casting Iseya as Yoshida Shōin is surprising as the historical figure is described as a man of unsightly appearance, his face marred by pockmarks. The physically attractive Iseya may initially seem an inappropriate choice for the role, but he is certainly able to lend the character a strong presence. Shōin is also described as being of a delicate constitution, and Iseya’s slender figure and fine features match this description. Presenting Shōin as a resilient and dynamic figure and not at all weak, Iseya’s representation comes quite close to descriptions of this historical figure. In the series, the scholar and political activist Shōin, animated by the fire of passion, is portrayed as a lively character, and Iseya’s vigorous acting makes this passion and commitment as well as Shōin’s vulnerability both palpable and comprehensible for the contemporary viewer.
When the series was aired, Iseya was about ten years older than Shōin when he died, and he still looks quite young, this youthful appearance probably making the historical figure more attractive to a younger public, connecting with the modern world and inviting identification. However, passion is also an attribute of youth, and Iseya’s acting presence and performance hints at Shōin’s immature side. The series depicts him as idealistic and charismatic but also fixated on his ideas and even fanatical. Iseya’s highly inventive acting adds many nuances to the role and helps the viewer to perceive an ordinary human being behind the political activist and famous historical figure. In one scene, Shōin has a look of surprise on his face when Fumi wears a fancier kimono than usual, and in another scene, he cannot help laughing at his student Kusaka’s (Higashide Masahiro) embarrassment when Kusaka asks him for permission to marry his sister.

Body and voice
In Shirasu Jirō – Man of Honor (Shirasu Jirō, 2009, Ōtomo Keishi), a mini-series produced by NHK, Iseya is cast in the leading role of the businessman and post-war bureaucrat Shirasu Jirō (1902-1985). Iseya plays Shirasu, known for his elegance and fashion sense, as a self-confident, open-minded, outspoken and charismatic man, a figure that fits perfectly into Iseya’s filmography with its great variety of roles.
In the science fiction film Casshern (Kyashan, 2004, Kiriya Kazuaki), shot in digital backlot, Iseya is cast in another main role, that of Tetsuya/Casshern, a young man killed in war and later resurrected by his father, a scientist. Tetsuya is another of the rebellious characters Iseya clearly enjoys playing. In this film, the son rebels against his father and against an authoritarian regime, becoming a saviour of mankind. Tetsuya/Casshern has supernatural powers but is also a broken character suffering from his traumatic war experiences. In several scenes, the viewer sees only his eyes as the lower-half of his face is covered by armour, and Iseya has to rely on his gaze to express emotion. Despite the abundance of technical specs, he manages to create a character with all the facets of a real human being.
In Kaiten – Human Torpedo War (Deguchi no nai umi, 2006, Sasabe Kiyoshi; [16]) Iseya also plays a tormented soul. The film is set in the Pacific War. Kita (Iseya) is one of four students who become members of a special assault unit of the Imperial Japanese Navy. They are pilots of kaiten, crewed torpedoes designed for suicide attacks. Iseya plays only a supporting role but succeeds marvellously in revealing the contradictions in Kita’s character. He is ambitious and cynical and quite different from the other three pilots. In a photograph that shows him together with them, he stands somewhat apart. In the film, his demeanour is dismissive and he is preoccupied chiefly with himself. But he displays emotion when one of his comrades begins to sing a song called “Native Town”. And he is nearly hysterical when he understands that the end of the war is close and that his chances of becoming a war hero are vanishing. All his arrogance is gone when he kneels in front of his comrade Namiki (Ichikawa Danjurō XIII), the film’s main protagonist, pleading with him to let him pilot his kaiten because his own torpedo has been damaged.
Iseya is often cast in supporting roles that he makes memorable with inspiring performances. In Sono Sion’s Shinjuku Swan (Shinjuku Suwan, 2015), set in Kabuki-chō, the red-light district in Shinjuku, a part of Tokyo, Iseya plays the supporting role of Mako, who employs Tatsuhiko (Ayano Gō) as a scout for the Burst agency, which recruits girls and young women for the sex industry. Mako’s interest in Tatsuhiko is aroused when the younger man gets into a fight with six or seven opponents and refuses to give up despite already bleeding heavily and being clearly outnumbered. A medium close-up shows Mako watching the brawl with fascination while nonchalantly lighting a cigarette. Elements such as framing and editing create the basis for the interpretation of facial expressions, but the viewer cannot fail to notice the precision in Iseya’s acting style that reveals Mako as both full of concentration and at the same time completely relaxed.
Iseya has exceptionally flexible facial features and is an actor with an impeccable sense of timing and ability to suddenly change the expression on his face. This talent is revealed in Harmful Insect (Gaichū, 2001), directed by Shiota Akihiko, in which he appears in only one long sequence and a few shots at the end of the film. He plays the role of a young man who is apparently a scout for the adult entertainment business. At a roadhouse, he spots Sachiko (Aoi Miyazaki), a 7th grade girl who has run away from home. Iseya’s performance in this minor role is remarkable. Playing an unnamed young man, he sits down with the girl, who has not asked him to do so and remains silent during the entire scene. He takes a drag on his cigarette, watching Sachiko and scrutinizing her. Then he smiles a very charming, inviting smile and tries to get the girl to talk. Sensitive and meaningful facial expressions emphasize his attempt to gain the girl’s trust and show her that, although an adult, he understands her perfectly. Almost tenderly, he asks Sachiko how old she is. Iseya does all this very naturally and with great creativity, lending additional dynamism to the scene.
Iseya’s virtuosity and also his eccentric acting in Lady Nobunaga and 13 Assassins undoubtedly recall the skills of Mifune Toshirō. In 13 Assassins, Koyata jumps and makes dance-like movements not unlike Mifune’s Kikuchiyo in Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai, 1954, Kurosawa Akira). The acting style of both men is eccentric and even exaggerated but always appropriate to the character they are playing. Just like Mifune’s, Iseya’s characters are always on the move. Kurosawa Akira often ensured that Mifune had something in his hands that brought additional movement to the scene and gave the actor opportunities for expression. These objects also served as a means to focus attention on the character. Iseya, too, frequently has some object in his hands to keep them busy. During a conversation with his brother in Distance, Masaru does not sit still. He makes movements like a gymnast with his arms and flips through a publicity flyer of the cult that his brother has given him. In Honey and Clover, Morita sometimes holds a bottle of beer in his hand or is eating while talking to another character.
Another aspect that Iseya and Mifune share is their predilection for playing outsiders, non-conformists and rebels, characters who have problems with authority. However, the way Iseya uses his voice is the more remarkable, and here, too, he explores a great variety of nuances. For example, in Lady Nobunaga, Hideyoshi’s voice becomes soft, emphasizing the secrecy of the information, when he denounces Mitsuhide as a traitor. It is a softness which also contains a hint of menace. In the animated film Tekkonkinkreet (2006, Michael Arias), Iseya speaks the role of the yakuza Kimura Naoki, who realizes that love is more powerful than hatred. However, at the beginning, he is depicted as a violent character. Facing the members of a youth gang, he says: “Take it easy!” and stretches the sentence, his voice expressing his coolness in this situation. On a different occasion, he speaks to one of his opponents in a sweet voice to lull him into a sense of security, and in a conversation with his wife, the deliberating tone of his voice emphasizes his thoughtfulness. In The Passenger (France/Canada/Japan, 2005, Francois Rotger; [17]), the leading character played by Iseya is a taciturn youth who says very little, giving the actor an opportunity to demonstrate how skilfully he is able to deal with silence. The protagonist of this international production set in Japan and in Canada is a young yakuza and male prostitute whose violence and vulnerability are once again revealed flawlessly by Iseya’s intelligent acting.

Present times
In various interviews, Iseya has referred to Yoshida Shōin and Sakamoto Ryōma as sources of inspiration. I will not pretend that Iseya is the Yoshida Shōin or the Sakamoto Ryōma of the 21st century. However, it is easy to understand how great the influence of their philosophy and way of life can be today. Even if in different contexts and with different consequences (18), Iseya, like Shōin, did not content himself with words but became socially active when he created the Rebirth Project, referring in this context to Ryōma, who inspired people with various visions of the future to work with him. When all its dimensions are considered, the Rebirth Project is, not unlike Ryōma’s Kaientai, a multifaceted company (19).
Although the Rebirth Project continues to be active, Iseya had to withdraw from his involvement after his conviction for drug possession in December 2020 (20). This event also offered him the opportunity to change his life completely and to take “a fresh start from the negative” as he stated in an interview in 2024 (21). Instagram became a means to communicate with a larger community (I have to admit to being one of his followers). According to his posts, he is able to afford a non-conformist lifestyle, and as one can read on the website of the Reborn Arts Festival: “he has shifted his focus on self-fulfilment, sharing his journey through the salon Sauce of Happiness” (22). He enjoys surfing, snowboarding and skating, and one might say that the 48-year-old Iseya lives the life of a young adult. However, it is not only a life of leisure. In 2022 he took part in the Reborn Arts Festival, a revitalization festival focusing on the arts, music and food in the Tōhoku area where he presented the installation “Worship”. And in 2024, his second book (23) was published. This autobiography Self-Portrait includes personal photographs and a variety of sketches made by Iseya during his childhood and university years. And even before the end of his probation, he was already cast in a new film: Araki Shinji’s Penalty Loop (24).
He also designs jewellery and clothing or contributes to the creation of such objects, as presented on his Instagram Website. The way he combines commerciality with reflections on social problems, even on the state of mankind today, sometimes sounds contradictory. However, Iseya uses his celebrity status to inspire people and to address questions that seem to plague him. In Distance, Masaru starts a long dialogue with Atsushi about the existence of God. The question about God’s existence is also at the core of his installation “Worship”, about which he has written on the website of the Reborn Arts Festival: “You are God. Think, don’t pray. Act, don’t wish. The world requires only your will, not another god.” (25) On Instagram, he continues to ask questions about God and about each individual’s social responsibility.
This is where the great models of the 19th century resonate – Yoshida Shōin and Sakamoto Ryōma. Hopefully Iseya-san will find self-fulfilment but will also stay committed to social issues. With regard to his acting, the topic focused on in this article, one might recall the words of William Butler Yeats, whose poem “Among School Children” (1928) ends: “How can we know the dancer from the dance?” This article will not and cannot give an answer to the question how much of Iseya is in his roles. Instead it offers insights into his work as an actor without detracting from the magic of an actor’s performances and the secret at their core.

Notes
(1) Names are written according to Japanese conventions: the family name before the given name.
(2) See on the two films directed by Iseya 
(3) Reborn Art Fest
(4) See Kore-Eda Hirokazu, Quand je tourne mes films, Paris, Atelier Akatombo, 2019, p. 121.
(5) In his book, Kore-Eda criticizes the behaviour of the media, writing that Jōyū was hounded by journalists and even refused accommodation, which led him to move into a building belonging to the cult. This decision aroused even more criticism from the media. See Kore-Eda, ibid., p. 121-123.

(6) Ibid., p. 131 [Translation by the author].

(7) The manga series was published from 2000 to 2006.
(8) It is perhaps a mere coincidence that the film’s location is this northernmost island but worth recalling that Iseya spent part of his childhood – from the age of three to the age of eight – in Hakodate on Hokkaido.
(9) Banei Tokachi horse races originated on Hokkaido in the early 20th century. Huge draught horses pull sleighs weighing 500 kilograms up and over ramps and through a sand track. Today, the races are held in the town of Obihiro, the film’s main setting.

(10) See for further details in shomingekionline
(11) See for further details in shomingekionline
(12) The third of the unifiers was Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), the first shogun of the House of Tokugawa. The Tokugawa shogunate lasted from 1603 to 1868.
(13) Hideyoshi was born into a peasant family. His father was apparently a foot soldier, a peasant-samurai who was crippled after having been wounded in battle.
(14) Taiga dorama are the annual year-long historical drama television series produced by NHK, the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation.
(15) Yoshida Shōin was already highly regarded as a scholar before becoming a political activist in the late years of the shogunate. Several of his students at Shōka sonjuku, the school he founded in his hometown Hagi, became influential politicians of the Meiji era (1868-1912) and have contributed to the construction of modern Japan. Takasugi Shinsaku was also one of Shōin’s students. Shōin spent many years in prison and under house arrest and was executed in 1859 during the Ansei Purge (1858-1860), which targeted opponents of the shogunal government.
(16) The film is also known as Sea Without Exit.
(17) See for further details on The Passenger
(18) Yoshida Shōin’s call for action included the one for the assassination of political opponents, i.e. representatives of the shogunate.
(19) As Shiba Ryōtarō states in his novel about Sakamoto Ryōma: “The Kaientai was multi-faceted by nature with five aspects: it was an anti-shogunate association, a private navy, a school of navigation, a transport company, and a trading company, both domestic and international. ‘Let everyone live in accordance with his own beliefs and principles’ was Ryōma’s way of thinking. Thus, if someone liked business and disliked warfare, he should not be forced to fight.” (Shiba Ryōtarō, Ryōma! The Life of Sakamoto Ryōma: Japanese Swordsman and Visionary, Kindle edition, 2018, Vol III, p. 160). The novel (Ryōma ga yuku/Ryōma Goes His Way) was first published in Japan in serialized form in the national newspaper Sankei Shinbun from 1962 to 1966.

(20) According to various press articles, about 13 grams of marijuana were found in his possession. Iseya was sentenced to one year in prison, a sentence suspended for three years.

(21) See Goetheweb

(22) See 2022 reborn art fes

(23) In 2013, Iseya had already published Shakai chokoku, Tokyo, Asahi Shinbun Shuppan in which h deals with the Rebirth Project and his social visions.

24. An interview with filmmaker Shinji Araki in shomingekionline

(25) See 2022 Reborn Art fest

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