|
|
| Festival Year |
Festival Section |
| 2014 |
Early Japanese Cinema |
| Film Title |
KAMINARIMON TAIKA – CHIZOME NO MATOI |
| Alternative Title 1 |
[Il grande incendio presso la Porta Kaminarimon – L’insegna dei pompieri insanguinata] |
| Alternative Title 2 |
[The Big Fire at the Kaminarimon Gate – The Blood-Stained Firemen’s Standard] |
| Alternative Title 3 |
|
| Country |
Japan |
| Release Date |
April 1916 |
| Production Co. |
Nikkatsu, Kyoto |
| Director |
? |
| Format |
|
Speed (fps) |
| 35mm |
|
16 |
| |
|
|
| Footage |
|
Time |
| 2004 ft. |
|
34' |
| Archive Source |
Theatre Museum, Waseda University |
| |
|
| Print Notes |
did./titles: JAP |
| Cast |
| Matsunosuke Onoe, Kijyaku Otani, Kitsuraku Arashi |
| |
| Program Notes |
Matsunosuke Onoe (1875-1926) played in more than 1,000 films from 1909 to 1926. He was, without any doubt, the most famous star in early Japanese film history. Everybody knew him, and children imitated his acting for fun. Although he appeared in so many films, unfortunately most of them do not survive. He worked in Nikkatsu’s Kyoto studio, and most of his films before 1921 were supervised by the director Shozo Makino. Although it is not certain if this film was actually directed by Makino, it displays the typical storytelling and acting style of Matsunosuke’s films: the story is borrowed not from a Kabuki play, but from Kodan (a genre of popular oral storytelling), and his method of acting is extremely stylized and artificial, which makes him appear almost unre-alistic.
The story echoes a famous Japanese saying, “Fights and fires are Edo’s flowers”. This refers to the fact that the fireman was a hero in the Edo period, and that different groups of firemen were often fighting one another. The fighting prowess of a young man, Senta (played by Matsunosuke Onoe), is discovered by Genshichi, the head of the Yo-gumi firemen’s group. When a fire breaks out at the Kaminarimon Gate, Senta and his companions rush to the scene, where they encounter the rival group Tachibana-gumi. A fight begins between the two groups, during which the Yo-gumi standard borne by Senta is broken. The head of this standard – the honorable symbol of the fire-men’s group – is taken away by the Tachibana-gumi. After several incidents, Senta is falsely ac-cused, and is sent to Miyakejima Island as a prisoner. Escaping from the island, he exacts his re-venge upon the Tachibana-gumi. – Hiroshi Komatsu
|
|
|
