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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Grunert-Kubi-Image

by Andrea Grunert

In Kubi (Japan, 2023), based on the actor-director’s eponymous novel, Kitano Takeshi (1) plays one of the most colourful figures in Japanese history: Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Hideyoshi (1537-1598) is regarded as the second of the three “Great Unifiers” of Japan after a long period of civil war. Not only an eminent historical figure, Hideyoshi has also inspired folk tales, kabuki plays, manga, novels, television dramas and films. According to Susan Westhafer Furukawa, there has been since his death “a confluence of writing and media about Hideyoshi” (2). As early as 1626, Oze Hoan published The Records of the Taikō (Taikōki), a 22-volume biography that became the basis for many of the stories written about Hideyoshi over the last four hundred years.
One aspect that could explain his continuing popularity is Hideyoshi’s route to power – from peasant origins to the most powerful man in Japan. In his newspaper serialization Taikō: An Epic Novel of War and Glory in Feudal Japan (Shinsho Taikōki, 1939-1942), Yoshikawa Eiji puts great emphasis on Hideyoshi’s adolescence and the early years of his career, addressing values such as loyalty and commitment. In post-war Japan, Hideyoshi as a creative spirit who overcame divisions in society became a model for the salaryman samurai, mirroring the social and cultural transitions of the time (3). In his novel Shinshi Taikōki (1968), Shiba Ryōtaro emphasizes the mercantile spirit of both Hideyoshi and Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), the first of the three “Great Unifiers”.
Works of literature are inevitably a mixture of historical accuracy and imagination, and this is obviously also true for the many films and television films made about Hideyoshi or in which he figures as a supporting character. Two taiga dorama, the annual year-long historical drama television series, have been produced about Hideyoshi (4): Taikōki (1963) and Hideyoshi (1996). Osone Tatsuo directed Taikōki – The Saga of Hideyoshi (Taikōki, 1958), an adaptation of Yoshikawa’s novel, and in 1987, Okamoto Kihachi directed a two-part television film that also had the title Taikōki. Hideyoshi is one of the two main characters in Mitani Kōki’s The Kiyosu Conference (Kiyosu kaigi, 2013; 5) and an important character in a number of other films such as Love Under the Crucifix (Ogin-sama, Tanaka Kinuyo, 1962), Warring Clans (Sengoku yarō, Okamoto Kihachi, 1963), Love and Faith (Ogin-sama, Kumai Kei, 1978), Death of a Tea Master (Sen no Rikyu: Honkakubō ibun, Kumai Kei, 1989), Rikyū (Teshigahara Hiroshi, 1989), Princess Gō (Gō-hime, Teshigahara Hiroshi, 1992), Ask This of Rikyū (Rikyū ni tazuneyo, Tanaka Misutoshi, 2013). The list of famous actors who have played Hideyoshi is equally long and includes Satō Makoto (Warring Clans), Mifune Toshirō (Love and Faith), Ogata Ken (the taiga drama Hideyoshi), Yamazaki Tsutomu (Rikyū), Ōmori Nao (Ask This of Rikyū), Ōizumi Yō (The Kiyosu Conference) and Iseya Yūsuke in the television production Onna Nobunaga (2013), directed by Takeuchi Hideki.

The narrative structure
Kubi is not a biopic. The action starts in 1579 with the end of an unsuccessful rebellion led by Akari Murashige (1535-1586), one of Oda Nobunaga’s retainers, and it ends in 1582 with Nobunaga’s death. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, at that time still called Hashiba Hideyoshi, and Akechi Mitsuhide (1528-1582) are two other retainers of Nobunaga (Kase Ryō), who is at the height of his power. The film deals briefly with Mitsuhide’s rebellion, during which Nobunaga was killed while Mitsuhide was defeated thirteen days later by Hideyoshi. One should note that all three “Great Unifiers” figure in Kubi, the third being Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), who achieved unification in the early 17th century (6).
The film starts with images of war: a great number of dead bodies floating in the water, crabs climbing out of the bloody neck of a headless body. Numerous shots and sequences reveal the horrors of war throughout the film including the bird’s eye view of a battlefield strewn with dead bodies. Despite these and other moments of bloodshed, Kitano is concerned mainly with treachery and intrigues. Nobunaga stirs up rivalry among his retainers and generals, deliberately not naming a successor and thereby implying that all of them the chance to prove themselves worthy of the task.
As in other Japanese historical films, there are many scenes showing a lord discussing with his retainers or generals. When they are not in one of these official meetings, Kubi’s main characters are usually busy scheming. Murashige (Endō Kenichi), who has found refuge with Mitsuhide (Nishijima Hidetoshi) after his failed rebellion, begs his friend to rise up against Nobunaga. Nobunaga orders Mitsuhide to kill Ieyasu (Kobayashi Kaoru). And Hideyoshi wants to remove all those involved in his intrigues. In addition to these and other well-known historical figures, the film includes subplots with both historical and fictional characters. The most important of these are created around the storyteller Sorori Shinzaemon (Kimura Yūichi; 7) and the peasant Naniwa Mosuke (Nakamura Shidō II). The former ninja Shinzaemon spies for Hideyoshi. Mosuke, a fictional character, wants to become a samurai at all costs, the recurring motive of a character in numerous jidai geki, including Kurosawa Akira’s Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai, 1954). However, unlike the courageous Kikuchyio (Toshirō Mifune), the peasant who dreams of becoming a samurai in Kurosawa’s masterpiece, Mosuke is a coward. Moreover, he kills his friend Tame and steals the head of an enemy general that Tame has cut off, and he hopes to be rewarded. And whereas Kikuchiyo is a complex character whose development from would-be-samurai to selfless fighter for justice is a main topic in Kurosawa’s film, Mosuke does not evolve but stubbornly follows his dream of becoming a samurai, obsessed with the idea of cutting off a general’s head as a trophy (8).

History and imagination: the main characters
The subplots and fictitious characters enrich the narrative of the film, which also contains many references to Kubi’s historical context. The presence of Europeans is evoked in two brief sequences in which Portuguese monks, visitors at Nobunaga’s residence, make their appearance (9). The military campaign against the Mori clan, ordered by Nobunaga and to be carried out by Hideyoshi, is also mentioned. The western-style velvet cape that Nobunaga wears on several occasions is part of an iconography associated with Nobunaga and perpetuated in a number of films, including Kurosawa Akira’s Kagemusha (1980).
It is usually said that Nobunaga committed seppuku at the Honnō-ji temple in Kyoto when Mitsuhide attacked him. In Kitano’s version however, the warlord dies a less honourable death. Convinced that his valet and bodyguard Yasuke (Soejima Jun) will disembowel himself, he offers to assist by beheading him. However, the African-born Yasuke (10) is not willing to follow the orders of his master nor to respect the rites of seppuku, and instead, he beheads Nobunaga with one swift movement of his sword, shouting angrily: “You yellow piece of shit.”
One could call Kitano’s interpretation and portrayal of Hideyoshi unconventional but undoubtedly original, starting with the fact that he plays Hideyoshi himself. Hideyoshi is generally described as a small man – perhaps suffering from rickets – with a wrinkled face who became bald at an early age. His nickname “Monkey” – “Saru” in Japanese – refers to his size and physiognomy and stature. In recent years, Ōmori Nao and Ōizumi Yō, who played the character in Ask This of Rikyu and The Kiyosu Conference respectively, are actors of slender build and thus similar to the usual image of Hideyoshi, their vivid acting style contributing to this perception. This is also the case for the tall and handsome Iseya Yūsuke, who played Hideyoshi in the miniseries Onna Nobunaga, the way he managed to wrinkle his face evoking the image of Hideyoshi, the monkey.
Kitano is much older than these actors, all of whom were born in the 1970s whereas Kitano was born in 1947. Moreover, he plays Hideyoshi as a rather clumsy person very much lacking vigour. By interpreting the role himself, Kitano underlines his refusal to follow conventional visions of Hideyoshi, and the differences are revealed not only physically but also by the absence of a variety of characteristics commonly associated with Japan’s second unifier, some of these characteristics having become established during Hideyoshi’s lifetime. As Susan Westhafer Furukawa puts it: “The first person to fictionalize Hideyoshi was Hideyoshi himself.” (11). Written nearly 350 years later, Yoshikawa’s novel incorporates characteristics such as loyalty and hard work, attributes that can serve as ideal values for readers and film viewers alike. In Osone’s Taikōki – The Saga of Hideyoshi, a digest version of the novel, Hideyoshi (Takada Kokichi) is depicted as an ambitious young man, a true self-made man and charismatic personality who prefers the society of commoners to those of samurai (12). This highly romanticized portrayal of Hideyoshi is heightened by the emphasis the film puts on filial duty. Hideyoshi’s ambition to become a samurai is paralleled by his strong desire to repay the debts he owes his mother (and elder sister), who made many sacrifices to help him.
Hideyoshi’s rise from humble origins to power became an inspiring tale for post-war Japan, as Shiba’s novel Shinshi Taikōki demonstrates. However, far from being idealized, Hideyoshi became an ambiguous figure as a result of critical approaches, as in Tsutsui Yasutaka’s satirical novella Yamazaki (13), and film directors also created critical interpretations of Hideyoshi’s heroic status. In Love under the Crucifix, Love and Faith, Death of a Tea Master, Rikyū, Ask This of Rikyū and Onna Nobunaga, Hideyoshi is depicted as selfish and materialistic, ambitious and despotic.
According to a Japanese saying, when asked what to do if a cuckoo does not want to sing, Nobunaga would have said: “Kill it!”, Hideoyshi: “Make it want to sing” and Ieyasu: “Wait for it to sing.” This saying reveals the different characteristics of the three men, referring in Hideyoshi’s case to his cleverness and charisma. Hideyoshi’s eloquence and political acumen are reflected in Mitani’s The Kiyosu Conference, which also emphasizes his intelligence and manipulative power. However, Kitano retains only the image of the schemer. He plays Hideyoshi as a brutish person, a Hideyoshi who does not coax the cuckoo to sing. He is a rather dull character, delegating duties to his more eloquent and capable half-brother Hidenaga, played by Ōmori Nao, who gives a far more vivid interpretation of Hideyoshi in Ask This of Rikyu. In one of Kubi’s very funny scenes, it is revealed that Hideyoshi is illiterate and depends largely on his brother’s abilities (14). However, he is shrewd and knows how to use and misuse other people to suit his own needs.
As in most of the films referred to in this article but with the exception of Taikōki – The Saga of Hideyoshi, Hideyoshi is depicted as a man of violence who has nothing of the leadership qualities suggested in Osone’s film from 1958 (15). In Kubi, a horrified Hidenaga declares : “You toy with the lives of people.” One difference from the cruel Hideyoshi in Onna Nobunaga is that Kitano’s Hideyoshi does not do the killing himself but delegates his murderous deeds to his subordinates and allies, a behaviour that contributes to the character’s ambiguity. The traditional image of Hideyoshi as a smooth talker, is perverted, and when Kitano’s Hideyoshi talks, it is often to give an order to kill.
Kubi means “neck”, and the bloody neck of the headless body shown in the opening sequence is an early indication of the violence in the period depicted by Kitano. The neck as the target of samurai swords is repeatedly evoked throughout the film. However, the word is not only used in the context of violence. The famous tea master Sen no Rikyū (Kishibe Ittokū) confides to Mitsuhide: “I wash my neck every morning. I will keep my kimono clean until the country is united.” A shrewd man, his secretive behaviour ensures that he literally keeps his head.
Compared to Kitano’s Hideyoshi, Nobunaga looks rather young (16) and is energetic if not hyperactive. Kase Ryō gives a perfect representation of the despotic and cruel leader suggested in the saying about the cuckoo. In Kubi, he is a true psychopath and not at all like the visionary Nobunaga of the recent television production Okehazama – Rise of Oda Nobunaga (Okehazama – Hao no tanjō, Kawake Shūnsaku, 2021). Kitano’s Nobunaga as played by Kase is not content simply to order killings as Hideyoshi does, and he also takes pleasure in humiliating – verbally and physically – and brutalizing his subjects. For example, he has Murashige bite off a ball of rice that he has put on the tip of his sword, turning the weapon around in his mouth until blood gushes out. In another scene, he brutally kicks and punches Mitsuhide.
Mitsuhide is referred to as “brooding and boring”, and it is with a constant expression of pain that Nishijima Hidetoshi plays the role of the man who in 1582 rebelled against his lord. He is portrayed as a loyal retainer who hesitates when urged by his lover Murashige to rise up against Nobunaga, and instead, he is pedantic in the way he follows the rules of his social class. In one scene, the two samurai are shown naked in bed. Murashige, the hunted rebel, touches Mitsuhide’s cheeks tenderly, but Mitsuhide thrusts his hand away, saying: “We are enemies. Behave accordingly.” However, Mitsuhide’s loyalty to his lord begins to waver when he learns that Nobunaga plans to have him killed. Ambition leads him to sacrifice Murashige (“The weight of ruling the land weighs heavier than the bond between two samurai.”), whom Mitsuhide has killed by his servants (17).

Power and performance
Homosexuality is one of the major topics in Kubi and is closely linked to questions of power and violence. Mitsuhide and Murashige are secret lovers while Nobunaga openly has sex with his young retainer Mori Ranmaru (Kanichiro; 18), being watched by Mitsuhide. The idea for a homosexual relationship between the two men stems from representations of Nobunaga and Ranmaru known from nanshoku literature (19) of the Edo period (1603-1868). Homosexual relations rarely figure in jidai geki, one exception being Oshima Nagisa’s Taboo (Gohatto, 1999), starring Kitano Takeshi. Kubi depicts an all-male universe in which the desire for power is stronger than sexual lust or sentimental feelings. Nobunaga promises Mitsuhide that he can become his successor if he declares his love for him. However, these are apparently mere words.
Kase Ryō’s Nobunaga is a highly eccentric figure and the opposite of both the crude Hideyoshi and the hesitant Mitsuhide with the latter’s constant expression of displeasure.
Nobunaga lives in accordance with the motto: “From the moment you’re born, life is one big joke.” Wearing a European velvet cape and colourful kimonos, he is reminiscent of an entertainer. References to theatre abound in Kubi. The storyteller Shinzaemon and a group of performers accompanying the troops of soldiers are a further link to the world of theatrical entertainment. In one sequence, a Noh play is performed. Such elements are often used in jidai geki, and here they provide an intertextual link to Kitano’s roots in the theatre as well as suggesting that many politicians are not unlike performers dealing with illusions.
In Kubi, humour contributes considerably to this element of performance and entertainment. Humour is both verbal and physical, supported by the comic talent of Kitano, Ōmori, Nakamura Shidō II and Asano Tadanobu, who plays Kurobe Kanbei (1546-1604), one of Hideyoshi’s advisors and known historically as his chief strategist. The witty repartee between Hideyoshi, Hidenaga and Kanbei presents them as a trio of comedians. In one scene, Hidenaga, in conversation with the samurai Koroku and Nakagawa, pretends to be deeply shaken by Nobunaga’s death. Hideyoshi and Shinzaemon watch the scene from behind a wooden wall and laugh their heads off at Hidenaga’s convincing performance, with Ōmori’s rather exaggerated acting signalling to the viewer that he is only pretending and that the tears he is shedding are crocodile tears. The presence of the two characters hiding from Koroku and Nakagawa even heightens the theatrical dimension of the scene. At a different point in the film, Hideyoshi asks Koroku: “Can you and Nakagawa die together?” He immediately corrects this slip of the tongue: “I mean lead the attack together?” Behind the joke lurks deadly seriousness that reveals Hideyoshi’s penchant for violence. This is also the case in the scene in which Shinzaemon has cheated at gambling. Hideyoshi intervenes, ordering: “Stick your neck out.” Instead of decapitating the former ninja, Hideyoshi starts laughing: “Just kidding.” A little later he sends Shinzaemon to the village of the Kōga ninja, saying nonchalantly to his brother: “He will die anyway.”
The role of the peasant Mosuke also has comical elements that contribute to the film’s burlesque aspect. A horo (20) attached to his back, he staggers rather than walking. However, he does not discard the horo, in the belief that wearing it makes him a samurai. Samurai codes are also mocked in the scene showing the seppuku of Lord Muneharu, watched by Hideyoshi, Hidenaga and Kanbei. Hideyoshi, growing impatient, shouts: “Hurry up and die!” while Kanbei reminds him: “No, no, my lord. The last rites of a samurai …” Hideyoshi’s retort that he is a peasant shows his lack of respect for samurai conventions as well as his selfishness and disregard of others. After Mitsuhide’s revolt has been put down, the heads of the dead are on display. Hideyoshi recognizes Mosuke’s head but not Mitsuhide’s. Enraged, he kicks the severed head, making it fall to the ground and revealing once again his disrespect for the dead and the codes and customs of the warrior class. The display of the heads is also a reminder that death is the great leveller and makes no distinction between samurai and peasants. In Kubi. there is nothing honourable about death. Murashige, a prisoner in a palanquin that is only a wooden box, is taken away by Mitsuhide’s servants, who push it into a ravine, the samurai being discarded like some object that is no longer needed.

Conclusion
Beginning in the late 1920s, the traditional image of samurai has been tarnished in a great number of jidai geki and the codes of behaviour of the warrior class – closely linked to matters of honour and loyalty – have been called into question. Humour is used as a means to deconstruct the ideal of the warrior class in Yamanaka Sadao’s The Million Ryō Pot (Tange Sazen yowa: hyakuman ryō no tsubo, 1935). Unlike Mitani in The Kiyosu Conference, another historical comedy revealing political intrigues and treachery, Kitano mixes humour with violence and even gore elements. Keeping a fine balance between violence and humour, Kubi, both blood-drenched and funny, is a highly entertaining retelling of history. Challenging the image of Hideyoshi by means of humour, Kitano nevertheless depicts him as sympathetic. However, his Hideyoshi also has a cunning and cruel side, and behind the image of the unsophisticated peasant, Kitano unmasks the tyrant and warns against autocratic behaviour, something that remains a threat in present-day societies.

Notes
(1) Names are written according to Japanese conventions: the family name before the given name.
(2) Susan Westhafer Furukawa, The Afterlife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi: Historical Fiction and Popular Culture in Japan, Cambridge, Mass./London: Harvard University Asia Centre, 2022, p. 1.
(3) See Westhafer Furukawa, op. cit., chapter 3: “The Salaryman Samurai: Hideyoshi as Business Model”, p. 84-121.
(4) Taiga dorama (literally “Big River dramas”) have been produced since 1963 by Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai, which can be translated as Japan Broadcasting Corporation. A taiga drama on Toyotomi Hidenaga, Hideyoshi’s half-brother, as central character is planned for 2026.
(5) See my article on The Kiyosu conference as a battlefield.
(6) Tokugawa Ieyasu achieved the unification of Japan after defeating the Toyotomi and their allies at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. Ieyasu became shōgun in 1603, and the Tokugawa family ruled over Japan from 1603 until 1868.
(7) Sorori Shinzaemon is said to be the founder of rakugo storytelling. However, it is not clear whether he really lived or is a figure from the realm of legends.
(8) There are many similarities between Mosuke and Tōbei (Ozawa Eitarō) in Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu (Ugetsu monogatari, 1953), which is set in the same period as Kubi. Tōbei is a peasant whose dream of becoming a samurai becomes an obsession. He also kills to gain possession of the head of an important warrior. Unlike Mosuke, Tōbei is rewarded for his cleverness and made a samurai. In the end, however, he renounces being a samurai and returns to his village. He does this out of love for his wife, while Mosuke is relieved that his wife and children have been killed. In this manner, they do not impede his aspirations.
(9) The first Portuguese ships arrived in Japan in 1543.
(10) Yasuke, presumably born around 1555, arrived in Japan with the Portuguese accompanying the Jesuit Alessandro Valignano on his first visit to Japan in 1579. In Japan, he became the valet and bodyguard of Nobunaga. According to historical sources, he survived the Honnō-ji incident. However, his subsequent life and the date of his death remain unknown.
(11) Susan Westhafer Furukawa, op. cit., p. 35.
(12) Note that Yoshikawa’s novel covers Hideyoshi’s life only from the age of 6 to the age of 49. Kitano’s film ends even before in the early 1560s.
(13) See Susan Westhafer Furukawa (op. cit.) for further details about the perception of Hideyoshi in Japanese culture since the 1950s. Westhafer Furukawa puts great emphasis on literature and also on matters such as tourist sites related to Hideyoshi. Film is a peripheral topic in her book and she deals with it only superficially.
(14) Hidenaga (1540-1591), always loyal to his half-brother, is regarded by some historians as his brain and right-hand man.
(15) Especially at the end of his reign, Hideyoshi acted with extreme brutality, for example the seppuku to which the famous tea master Sen no Rikyū was condemned, the execution of the whole family of Hideyoshi’s nephew Hidetsugu and the savage executions of Christians. Historians can only speculate about the reasons for these acts. See Mary Elizabeth Berry, Hideyoshi, Cambridge, Mass./London, The Council on East Asia Studies & Harvard University Press, 1982, p. 222-228.
(16) Kase, born in 1974, is 27 years Kitano’s junior.
(17) This is fictional, and in reality Murashige died in 1586, four years after Nobunaga and Mitsuhide.
(18) Mori Ranmaru was presumably born in 1565.
(19) Nanshoku, literally “male colours”, is a form of literature dealing with male-to-male sexuality in pre-modern Japan.
(20) A horo is a cloak or garment put over a framework of wicker, bamboo or whalebone which was attached to the back of the armour of a samurai and enhanced the appearance of the mounted warrior or highlighted his rank. It also had a protective function against arrows. In Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu, Tōbei thinks that wearing a suit of armour and owning a spear are enough to be considered a samurai.

Grunert-Image-01

by Andrea Grunert

Okamoto Kihachi (1) started his career as an assistant to several famous directors of Japanese cinema, including Makino Masahiro, Naruse Mikio and Honda Ishirō. He made his directorial debut in 1958 with All About Marriage (Kekkon no subete), a romantic comedy. But he very soon turned to other genres and in 1959, he made his first war film, the satire Desperado Outpost (Dokuritsu gurentai), followed two years later by the sequel Westward Desperado (Dokuritsu gurentai nishi-e). Okamoto also directed several crime genre films. His spy film The Age of Assassins (Satsujinkyō jidai, 1967) once again contains satirical elements as does his jidai geki film Kill! (Kiru, 1968). Jidai geki films are set in the Tokugawa period from 1603 to 1868, and Okamoto’s original approach in this film left an undeniable mark on the genre. Other jidai geki masterpieces that he directed undoubtedly include Sword of Doom (Dai-bosatsu tōge, 1966) and Samurai Assassin (Samurai), the latter being the focus of this article.
Produced by Tōhō Studios and Mifune Productions (2), the film stars Mifune Toshirō, who was already cast in a supporting role in All About Marriage. The film from 1958 marked the beginning of a long period of collaboration of the two men, who worked together on ten films. The script of Samurai Assassin was written by Hashimoto Shinobu, one of Kurosawa Akira’s usual collaborators, and is based on a novel by Gunji Jirōmasa.

The historical context
The action is set in February and early March 1860 in Edo (present-day Tokyo) and focuses on the attempt by a group of rebels to assassinate Ii Naosuke (Matsumoto Kōshirō VIII), the Great Elder, a high ranking official during the shogunate whose status could roughly be compared to that of a modern-day prime minister (3). The period depicted in the film is known as Bakumatsu (“end of the Bakufu”; the Bakufu denoting government by the shogun), a period of great turmoil sparked off by the arrival of American ships in Edo Bay in 1853. The threatening attitude of the Americans put an end to the isolationist policy that Japan had maintained since the 17th century. Bakumatsu ended in 1868 with the abolition of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial rule. Ii, the most powerful official of his time, was a supporter of the Tokugawa shogunate and favoured opening the country up to international trade. However, his policy encountered strong opposition from imperialist loyalists, mainly from those in the provinces Mito, Chōshū and Satsuma, to which Ii responded with violence by ordering the “Ansei Purge” (1858-1860), during which a large number of individuals suspected being disloyal to the Tokugawa shogunate were imprisoned, exiled or even executed. His merciless policy against his opponents made him a most hated figure.
The film’s plot culminates in the assassination of Ii by seventeen imperial loyalists from Mito and one from Satsuma at the Sakurada Gate, one of the entrances to Edo Castle, the shogun’s palace (today`s Imperial Palace) in Edo on 24th March 1860. In the film, Ii has only a few appearances and in one sequence he expresses his regret about the Ansei Purge, considering it too harsh. He is therefore reluctant to take action against the men from Mito who are suspected of planning an attempt on his life purely on the basis of suspicion. He is, moreover, arrogant enough to find it absurd that someone should try to kill him in broad daylight.
The film centres on the group of assassins plotting and scheming, starting with their first failed attempt to kill Ii. During a meeting at an inn, they discuss the reasons for this failure and the possibility that they were betrayed. While they consider who the traitor could be, the camera moves from one face to another until it settles on a figure sitting in the background. Camera movement and framing emphasize that this is the presumed culprit – the film’s main protagonist Niiro Tsuruchiyo (Mifune). While the opening credits run, Tsuruchiyo is shown unabashedly plucking a hair from his nose. In these very first shots of the protagonist, his attitude already differs from that of the other conspirators. He seems uninterested in their discussion and leans against a wall as if he is asleep. His unkempt appearance also distinguishes him clearly from the other members of the group.
Later, it is said that he is a ronin from Bishuu who lives in a shack and has the reputation of being a ruffian, stealing and killing and earning his living as a bodyguard and blackmailer. Numerous scenes show his penchant for violence and alcohol. In fact, Tsuruchiyo is a drunkard and an impetuous and short-tempered man, but he is also one of the two best swordsmen in the group of conspirators. It is because of his great skill with the sword that a man with such a bad reputation could become a member of the Mito group.

Portrait of an outcast
In Samurai Assassin, Mifune Toshirō again plays an outcast and a character guided by his emotions. Because Okiku (Aratama Michiyo), the woman who runs the inn where the meeting of the Mito samurai takes place, bears a striking resemblance to the woman he was once in love with, Tsuruchiyo stubbornly refuses to leave the place for days and becomes obsessed with Okiku. Dialogues and flashbacks reveal Tsuruchiyo’s origins and his decline. Born the illegitimate son of a high-ranking samurai and his concubine, he was adopted by a Doctor of Medicine, a man closely associated with samurai. Supported financially by the merchant Kisoya (Tōno Eijirō), a friend of Tsuruchiyo’s mother, he was given an excellent education as a young man and became the best student in a famous dōjō (a place of immersive learning, especially in the martial arts) in Bishuu. His unrequited love for Princess Kiku (also played by Aratama Michiyo) has turned him into an outcast. Rejected by the young woman’s father (Shimura Takashi) because of his low status, he lost all self-control and started drinking and quarrelling. Expelled from the dōjō, he became a ronin and the depraved individual he is portrayed as in the film. Haunted by the wish to discover the truth about his biological father, he seeks social recognition. His decision to join the conspirators from Mito is not based on ideology but on the hope that he will be rewarded following Ii’s death, and he dreams of becoming a samurai with a steady income.
Mifune’s performance is flawless as ever, his acting being in perfect accord with the portrayal of Tsuruchiyo as a brute, a man whose behaviour, in particular in the film’s final sequence, is close to madness. Despite the many scenes focusing on Tsuruchiyo’s outbursts, there are some moments in which he reveals a different and gentler side of his personality. When Tsuruchiyo plays with his friend Kurihara’s (Kobayashi Keijū) young son, he looks happy and relaxed. But the mention of his dead mother puts an end to this idyllic moment. Tsuruchiyo’s smile fades and his features darken into an expression of sadness.
Mifune’s energetic performance is an important contribution to the film in the way it deals with Tsuruchiyo’s inner torment. The loss of the love of his life and the desperate search for his biological father’s identity are the reasons for his decline and his subsequent struggle for dignity. He tells his friend Kurihara – who is not only an excellent swordman but also a renowned scholar – that his only aim is to live as a human being again. Unable to understand Kurihara’s remark that he has the same dream but extends this aim to other people, he simply says: “I don’t understand. All I know is that you are a good man.” This humble remark implies that Tsuruchiyo is not an intellectual like his friend, but it reveals that he is a caring and sympathetic human being.
However, he is the one who kills Kurihara, suspected by the Mito group’s leader Hoshino (Itō Yūnosuke) of being a traitor. Despite his doubts about Kurihara’s guilt, Tsuruchiyo agrees to the deed after being threatened with expulsion from the group. The prospect of being rewarded by being chosen for the murder of Ii is stronger than his friendship with Kurihara. When the identity of the group’s real traitor is revealed a little later, Tsuruchiyo is desperate, but for the cynical Hoshino, Kurihara’s death is merely collateral damage. In this sequence, which takes place at night in a dimly lit interior, Hoshino’s haughty expression and his pale face, stand out in the darkness, giving him a diabolical aura as the film’s embodiment of evil.
Tsuruchiyo, by contrast, is a character of contradictions. Called a “monster” by some, he is mainly a tormented soul and still capable of deep feelings. His counterpart on a symbolic level can be found in the Noh play Kurozuka (Black Mound), a play that Ii attends a performance of in the film. In this play, the female character who becomes a demon due to obsession wears the hannya mask of a vengeful spirit. However, this mask has a dual significance, the person who wears it being not only a demon but, like Tsuruchiyo, also grief-stricken and tormented, thereby displaying the complexity of the human being.

A cinematic style of contrasts and fragmentation
Samurai Assassin is a film about the end of an era – that of the shogunate – and about darkness pervading a man’s soul. The many nocturnal scenes and the magnificent use of black-and-white photography with its subtle interplay of light and shadow, strongly support these central themes. This is also true for the use of meteorological phenomena such as rain and snow. Many of the scenes take place in pouring rain, underlining the misery of the film’s protagonist as he staggers drunkenly through the muddy streets. The assassination of Ii takes place during a heavy fall of snow, the white blanket on the ground being not a symbol of innocence or purity but referring to death. Also significant is the fact that Ii’s is assassinated on Peach Observance Day, or Girls’ Day/Doll’s Day (hinamatsuri), a festival with its religious origins in Shintoism on which the health and happiness of girls and young women are celebrated (4). On this day, dolls representing the emperor and empress and their entourage dressed in court costumes of the Heian period (784-1185) are put on display. In the film, Okiku has brought such dolls to Tsuruchiyo’s shack and arranged them according to the custom of hinamatsuri. The contrast between the symbols of youth, joy and innocence and Tsuruchiyo’s depravation, represented in this sequence by his dilapidated hut, revealsonce again the complexity of his personality and the tragedy of his life. Talking about his dream of social ascendency. Tsuruchiyo’s smiling face has something childlike, another reminder that this ruthless killer is nevertheless a human being. However, Okiku’s attempt to save Tsuruchiyo from himself fails. Returning to the shack the next morning, she finds on the dirty floor only the dead bodies of the ten killers that Hoshino has ordered Tsuruchiyo to liquidate and also the dolls. Later, the assassination of Ii takes place off-screen, beheaded by Tsuruchiyo, and the film shows the head of the emperor-doll earlier seen as a bridegroom falling down as if it has been cut off – an aesthetic device that also suggests the end of all happiness for Tsuruchiyo and Okiku.
As in other films directed by Okamoto, extravagant framing abounds, such as series of close-ups of faces or objects and an insistence on body parts. In the duel scene between Tsuruchiyo and Kurihara at their first meeting, the camera shot remains on the feet of the two opponents. Only at the moment when the two swords clash are Tsuruchiyo’s face and upper body framed. Very often in this scene, a face, a part of a body or an object are foregrounded. Another frequent device is the use of a frame within a frame, for example when the bamboo screens create a frame in one of the shots. Okamoto employs the technique of depth of field in a particularly ingenious manner, using bodies or parts of bodies as framing devices for a human figure in the background. Satō Masaru’s film score makes use of drums and flutes borrowed from Noh theatre to produce hammering or plaintive but always insistent sounds that are sources of strong tension.
Music, lighting, framing and sudden camera movements destroy any sense of harmony and therefore contribute to a feeling of insecurity and disorientation. The action in the film culminates in the attack on Ii and his retinue, which is filmed in virtuoso fashion and leads to scenes of pure carnage in which the conspirators kill the samurai and servants accompanying Ii and themselves die in the bloodbath. Writhing bodies, severed limbs and screams of the dying contribute gruesome effects to the sequence.

The individual in history
A picture of the assassination of Ii at the Sakurada Gate shows a samurai running away rejoicing with a severed head impaled on his sword (5). In the film, Tsuruchiyo is shown in a similar manner, running away with Ii’s severed head on his sword and shouting in triumph. In the film’s final shot, Tsuruchiyo is an ever-shrinking figure in the falling snow the individual depicted as meaningless in the expanse of the snow-covered square at the Sakurada Gate.
Tsuruchiyo may be a violent man who has been led astray by circumstances, but in the group of Mito revolutionaries, he is a prisoner in a web of violence and intrigue. After being told Tsuruchiyo’s tragic life story, Okiku falls in love with him. Both she and Kisoya try to help him, and even Ii, who is, as it turns out, Tsuruchiyo’s father, is concerned about his unknown son, having asked one of his councillors three times about his whereabouts. However, when Kisoya finally decides to tell Tsuruchiyo who his father is, it is already too late.
Once again, Mifune plays an outstanding swordsman, although not a heroic figure but the victim of manipulation whose longing for honour and social recognition turns out to be an illusion. Tsuruchiyo is unaware of his self-destructive behaviour and of the collapse of a whole system, which is the consequence of Ii’s murder. Facing death, Ii makes a prophecy about Japan’s future, saying that his death means that Japan holds no future for the samurai. And indeed, the abolition of the samurai class came only a few years after Ii’s assassination (6).
However, the conventions of the rigid class system of the Tokugawa period with the samurai as the highest caste have plunged Tsuruchiyo into misfortune. The concept of honour that is associated with the samurai is absent in Okamoto’s film. And as in Kobayashi Masaki’s Harakiri (Seppuku, 1962), Okamoto’s view on the place of the individual in a corrupt society as well as in history is utterly pessimistic, with the individual just a small cog in the huge machinery of history. The names of Kurihara and the real traitor have been erased from the clan’s records, and Tsuruchiyo’s name was erased by Hoshino the night before Ii’s assassination, leaving no trace of the assassin in the history of the Mito clan and, by extension, in Japanese history. Tsuruchiyo’s triumph is a mere illusion, imbuing the end of the film with a feeling of overwhelming sadness, just as the cold of the wintry weather is pervasive on the screen and even palpable for the viewer.

Notes
(1) Names are written according to Japanese conventions: the family name before the given name.
(2) Actor Mifune Toshirō founded his production company in 1962.
(3) Ii Naosuke (1815-1860) presided over the Council of Elders from 1858 until his death in 1860.
(4) After the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, the date of hinamatsuri was fixed on 3rd March. However, before that time, it was on the third day of the third month. The use of different calendars explains the discrepancy between the day on which

hinamatsuri is celebrated today and the day of Ii’s assassination, given as 24th March in the Gregorian calendar.
(5) I refer here to a silk painting dating from 1860 and the work of an unknown artist.
(6) The feudal system and the privileges of the samurai class were officially abolished in 1871.