Jidai-geki
Jidai-geki ( Japanese 時代 劇 , Jidai : "age", geki : "drama", "stage play"), also Jidai-geki eiga ( 時代 劇 映 画 , eiga : "film") is a Japanese film genre that is roughly called Period film can be translated and its roots lie in the Noh theater and Kabuki . The term is first mentioned in 1923.
It refers to films that play with the Meiji period before the modernization of Japan . Jidai-geki are often set in the Edo period (1603–1868). Films from the previous Sengoku period (1477–1573) are also known as Sengoku-jidai ( 戦 国 時代 ), and films that focus on sword fights are known as Ken-geki (also Chambara) ( 剣 劇 ).
history
Although films that fit this genre have been around since the dawn of Japanese film , the term Jidai-geki did not come into Japanese usage until 1923. Makino Shōzō used the term that year to promote his film Woodcut Artist (see woodcut ).
Of the many thousands of films in this genre, comparatively few are available outside of Japan. Akira Kurosawa, in particular, made this genre famous in the western world in the 1950s.
By the end of the 1980s, the demand for Jidai-geki films had almost died out, until directors such as Ryūhei Kitamura ( Aragami , Azumi ) and Hiroyuki Nakano ( Samurai Fiction , Red Shadow ) revived the genre in the late 1990s .
Allegedly, the word Jidai fascinated the American director George Lucas so much that he gave the order of knights the name Jedi in his popular Star Wars films based on it .
Well-known Jidai-geki films
- 1925: Orochi by Buntarō Futagawa
- 1928–1929: Roningai by Masahiro Makino
- 1935: Tange Sazen Yowa: Hyakuman Ryo no Tsubo by Sadao Yamanaka
- 1937: Humanity and Paper Balloons by Sadao Yamanaka
- 1952–1954: Jirochō Sangokushi by Masahiro Makino
- 1954: The Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa
- 1955–1956: Samurai trilogy by Hiroshi Inagaki with Toshirō Mifune
- 1962–2003: The Zatoichi series with Shintarō Katsu or Takeshi Kitano
- 1961: Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa
- 1962: Harakiri by Masaki Kobayashi
- 1962: Sanjuro by Akira Kurosawa
- 1963: Thirteen Assassins by Eiichi Kudo
- 1964: Three Outlaw Samurai by Hideo Gosha
- 1966: The Sword of Doom by Kihachi Okamoto
- 1966: The Secret of the Urn by Hideo Gosha
- 1966–1967: Samurai Wolf by Hideo Gosha
- 1969: Goyokin by Hideo Gosha
- 1969: Hitokiri by Hideo Gosha
- 1973: The Okami series by Kenji Misumi , Buichi Saito , Yoshiyuki Kuroda
- 1973: Lady Snowblood by Toshiya Fujita
- 1978: Shogun's Samurai by Kinji Fukasaku
- 1979: Hunter in the Dark by Hideo Gosha
- 1980: Kagemusha - The Shadow of the Warrior by Akira Kurosawa
- 1981: Samurai reincarnation of Kinji Fukasaku
- 1985: Ran by Akira Kurosawa
- 1985: The Dagger of Kamui by Rintarō
- 1993: Ninja Scroll by Yoshiaki Kawajiri
- 1997: Princess Mononoke by Hayao Miyazaki
- 1998: Samurai Fiction by Hiroyuki Nakano
- 2002: Samurai in the twilight by Yōji Yamada
- 2007: Sword of the Stranger by Masahiro Andō
- 2010: 13 assassins by Takashi Miike
See also
literature
- Joseph L. Anderson, Donald Richie : The Japanese Film. Art and Industry. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1982, ISBN 0-691-00792-6 .
- Stuart Galbraith: The Emperor and the Wolf. The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. Faber and Faber, New York NY et al. 2002, ISBN 0-571-19982-8 .