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| Festival Year |
Festival Section |
| 2005 |
MUSICAL EVENTS -- SHOCHIKU 110 – NARUSE 100 (Light from the East: Celebrating Japanese Cinema - Prog. 3) |
| Film Title |
ZANJIN ZANBAKEN |
| Alternative Title 1 |
[LA SPADA ASSASSINA DI UOMINI E DI CAVALLI] |
| Alternative Title 2 |
[SLASHING SWORDS / MAN-SLASHING, HORSE-PIERCING SWORD] |
| Alternative Title 3 |
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| Country |
Japan |
| Release Date |
20 September 1929 |
| Production Co. |
Shochiku |
| Director |
Daisuke Ito |
| Format |
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Speed (fps) |
| 35mm |
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18 |
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| Footage |
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Time |
| 1767 ft. |
|
26' |
| Archive Source |
National Film Center, Tokyo |
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| Print Notes |
Didascalie in giapponese sottotitolate in inglese / Japanese intertitles, English subtitles |
| Cast |
| Ryunosuke Tsukigata, Misao Seki, Kanji Ishii, Miharu Ito, Jinichi Amano, Dennosuke Ichikawa, Haruo Okazaki, Ryutaro Nakane, Shoko Asano |
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| Other Credits |
| sogg./story, scen: Daisuke Ito; f./ph: Hiromitsu Karasawa |
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| Other Information |
Restauro digitale / Digitally restored version.
Musica composta da / Music composed by Kensaku Tanikawa. Esecuzione dal vivo di / Performed live by Kensaku Tanikawa (piano), Toshiyuki Sakai (sassofono alto, flauto / alto saxophone, flute), Kota Miki (violoncello), Kumiko Takara (percussioni/percussion). |
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| Program Notes |
This legendary lost film of Japanese cinema history, long awaited by film fans and researchers, has finally been found, and revived. Together with Chuji tabi nikki (A Diary of Chuji’s Travels; 1927), Zanjin Zanbaken is one of the representative films directed by Daisuke Ito (1898-1981), the master director and revolutionary of the period film. It was highly acclaimed as a pioneering work of the so-called keiko eiga (“tendency films”: the name given to Japanese films of the late 1920s with a leftist tendency), but it was long considered lost, until 2002, when just over 20% of the film was discovered on 9.5mm and digitally restored onto 35mm utilizing the best available technology.
The film tells the story of a revolution in which repressed and exploited farmers have their consciousness raised through meeting the hero Raizaburo, and how they eventually rebel against an evil lord. To avoid the censor, however, the film resorts to the trope of dynastic family intrigue by showing how Osuga, the stereotypically evil magistrate, plots to kill the child who is the legitimate heir to the lordship and make an illegitimate child inherit the title. In other words, the film had to maintain the pretense that the farmers’ plight was caused not by fundamental class struggles, but by the character of the evil magistrate, so they will be better off once he is removed. The scenes in which the farmers shouted out their grudges were also cut for censorship reasons. As a result the film’s original intentions must have seemed extremely muddled when it was completed and shown. Even so, the superb filmmaking evident in the rediscovered footage more than justifies the historical prestige of this film. Note, for example, the striking contrast between black and white in the scene in which black horses on the magistrate’s side and white horses on Raizaburo’s side violently collide, and the overwhelming sense of speed in the scene in which Raizaburo dashes on horseback to save some farmers on the verge of being crucified on the riverbank. – FUMIKO TSUNEISHI
I’m very glad and honored to have an opportunity to accompany great films by legendary directors like Daisuke Ito and Mikio Naruse. I will try to make the best use of my jazzy sound to convey the films’ dynamism. I also very much look forward to communicating with the foremost musicians gathering at the festival, to sharpen my style of silent film accompaniment. – KENSAKU TANIKAWA
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