FLAWLESS EXECUTION

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The Visually Stunning Revenge of a Kabuki Actor is a tale of vengeance with a gender-bending twist/ BY FRANCISCO LO

"When a man masters a style, and develops a reputation in the world, he tends to forget his initial enthusiasm for the task.” — Master Isshosai on the significance of his blank scroll.

An artist always leaves a personal touch on his/her work like the fingerprints left at a crime scene. Looking at any film director’s career, it is usually not difficult to connect the dots between his/her works. From science fiction to British period drama, Stanley Kubrick is as versatile as one can be. Yet even the most causal Kubrick fan can pick up on his distinctive style within his works. With Japanese director Kon Ichikawa, there is not much similarity between the works in his five-decade long career. Even the two war films he made in the 1950s, The Burmese Harp and Fires On the Plain, are vastly different— the former is a pacifist meditation about a soldier-turned-monk whereas the latter tells the bleak story of a band of desperate soldiers who resort to cannibalism. It is difficult to believe a director who made these realistic black-and-white war films is the same guy who made Revenge of a Kabuki Actor, a period drama filled with vibrant colors and elaborate theatre-inspired design

Kabuki is a form of traditional Japanese theatre that is notable for the actor’s heavy make-up, splendid costumes and its unique sing-and-dance setup. Yukinojo, played by Kasuo Hasegawa in his 300th film appearance, is a cross-dressing actor playing female roles and remains in feminine clothing off the stage, a common practice at his time. During one of his performances, he recognizes two men in the audience are the sleazy merchants who bankrupted his family’s business and drove his parents to suicide decades ago. Vowed to avenge his parents, Yukinojo, who is also a trained swordsman, opts not to reveal his identity and kill them on the spot because one of the sleazebags is not present. One of the three merchants, Sansai Dobe (Ganjiro Nakamura), is now a powerful man in the area thanks to his beautiful daughter Namiji’s status as the warlord’s favorite concubine. Namiji (Ayako Wakao) falls in love with Yukinojo’s androgynous beauty after watching him on stage and invites the actor to meet her in her father’s mansion. Capitalizing on the innocent woman’s infatuation, Yukinojo inches his way to a masterplan that will destroy his enemies with their own greed and guilt.

In contrast to the mournful tone of Yukinojo’s deadly quest, a group of colorful minor characters reveal a lighter side of the film. Yamitaro, also played by Kasuo Hasegawa, is a Robin-Hood-like thief who secretly observes and assists Yukinojo from afar. Hirutaro (Raizo Ichikawa) is a hopeless imitator who always tries to outdo Yamitaro, only to fall short comically. Ohatsu (Fujiko Yamamoto) is a headstrong female pickpocket who can’t seem to decide how she feels about the pale-faced protagonist. Then there’s Kadokura the runaway samurai (Eiji Funakoshi) who attempts to kill Yukinojo in order to prove that he is the better swordsman, an assessment not shared by their teacher Isshosai (Jun Hamamura).



With a tight and straightforward screenplay adapted by Ichikawa's wife Natto Wada, Revenge of a Kabuki Actor is an entertaining drama as well as a stunning work of art. Ichikawa, an aspiring painter before he became a director, pours his creative talents into this colorful cinematic exercise. His use of light and shadows is uniquely inspired by theatre, as demonstrated in the deliberate changes of lighting within a shot and the striking presence of darkness throughout the film. Revenge of a Kabuki Actor is anything but a point-and-shoot recording of a staged drama. Every frame is a gorgeous picture because Ichikawa uses the widescreen as his canvas with careful execution. The quiet little sword fights, though only lightly choreographed, are composed with neat little shots of a reflecting blade and short blasts of action. While many of the film’s actors have backgrounds in traditional Kabuki training, the ensemble’s performance is spot on and free from any overtly theatrical display. It is clear that Ichikawa’s film is an attempt to challenge the traditional form of filmmaking with theatrical devices, instead of exploiting the readiness of filming a play.

Irony is probably one of the very few elements known to be in common among Ichikawa’s films. The biggest irony in Revenge of a Kabuki Actor is the fact that the two female characters are crazy about the androgynous cross-dresser with heavy make-up, an absolute antithesis to the masculine world of samurai cinema. But in true samurai man-love fashion, Yukinojo is also adored by the leader of his acting troupe and Yamitaro, the manliest of men in the film. The brotherly love between Yukinojo and the two men suggestively implies the unspoken affection that is left to the viewers’ imagination.

After shooting Revenge of a Kabuki Actor under the total control of a studio set, Ichikawa ventured to the outdoors with 1965’s Tokyo Olympiad, a sports documentary that is still considered one of the best. Kon Ichikawa never settled down with a style or niche. He is the blank scroll that always adapts with enthusiasm. In comparison to his fellow Japanese masters, Ichikawa’s name remains relatively unknown today, and that is the biggest irony of his legacy.

Revenge of a Kabuki Actor will be released on DVD on October 14.