THERE is a film showing in town, and it is about the legend of the samurai. That legend ends with a film. That film kills the samurai.
There is a film showing in town, and it is telling the story of Japan once more, this time in complex layers. Romance, both in the sense of adventure and of individuals loving the story, fills the screen. The film demonstrates, once and for all, that the origin of relationships being complicated really does not lie in the Western classics, but in the Eastern ones.
This film is rocking the world of samurai lovers in the country. It has been awhile since cinemagoers were treated to the lore and legends of sword-wielding heroes from the pages of Japanese literature. This time, we are introduced to the story of Kenshin Himura, whose legend is an irrepressibly engaging narrative of uncontested allegiance, betrayal and loss.
What sets this film apart from other samurai films of the past is its origin: the manga, or comics, tradition of Japan. This makes our hero not quite the hero seen in the films of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. In those decades, the image of the samurai—or, to be more specific, the ronin, or masterless warrior—followed the template provided by Hollywood. In Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, the ronin are mercenaries. This was the great Japanese film
director’s homage to John Ford, the master of the Western.
As this is Japan, expect the appropriation of tradition to result in a product that, while hinting at the inspiration or pointing to some kind of provenance, is blisteringly and audaciously original and new.
In the manga, our hero has long orange hair and a cross-shaped scar on his cheek that never displaces his charm—part boy, part solid gentleman. He is not a warrior when he’s not fighting, but an apparition to behold. The nose is aquiline; the lips pursed, as if reacting to some teasing. He is a lover who will never be anyone’s lover.
All the ingredients of a delicate and inscrutable culture, one that has been exoticized, are here in this film, in this tale of Kenshin.
The story of Kenshin happens in the period when the samurai class is on the wane. The samurai, as an icon of Japanese cinema, was well-developed in the period after the Tokugawa Era, when the han, or fiefdom, disappeared and the samurai lost their masters.
The samurai is a person trained to die for a master. Take away the master and the samurai has no one to die for. What must he do, then?
In the case of Kenshin, he cannot master a higher form of fighting because he is afraid of death. This is the contradiction that troubles him and all other ronin. His master reminds him of the principle of death and life. The samurai is difficult to defeat because he is already dead even before he fights. After all, the samurai is always ready to die for his master. But eliminate the reason for that resignation in the face of death, and you will have a person who has lost his reason not only for dying, but also for living.
But what personally delights me as a lecturer of Japanese cinema for almost 30 years is the Filipinos’ rediscovery of the many facets of the samurai. There is the intense brotherhood among the samurai, which borders on the homoerotic. The so-called rough-and-tumble, straight samurai fans will, of course, deny this aspect of the warrior’s life. For female fans of the yaoi, a fictional form that celebrates the usually platonic relationship between males, will discover romance in the tale of Kenshin.
The ideological aspect of the film, however, is one reason to regard this latest depiction of the samurai differently. In the film, Kenshin is employed by the new Meiji government to kill another assassin. In the battle to restore the power of the emperor over the shogunate, some samurai were conscripted to fight on the side of the military government, which comes off as duplicitous.
In the end, officials of the new Japan congratulates our hero and declares his old assassin’s name, Battosai, dead and Kenshin Himura alive. He is welcomed to the new age, the new generation. The dawning of the new age, however, also means the death of the samurai. Killing the warrior also means killing all the ideals found in the Bushido, as well as the death of unbridled loyalty and the disappearance of the discipline of detachment.
The cinema is a refraction of the socioeconomic realities of a country. In Rurouni Kenshin it is not clear what side the cinema is on. What is clear is that, in the end, as the old name of Kenshin is banished, the fortune of politicians is assured.
In the end it is fall. Kenshin is seen picking up a Japanese maple leaf. He compares himself to the leaf. The beauty of the ephemeral triumphs once more.
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Image credits: Jimbo Albano