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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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.