Sword Unconcealed: The Martial Legacy Of The Samurai

Kendo. Via.

It was 1877, and the samurai were in trouble. According to Stephen Burnbull's The Samurai Swordsman: Master of War, Saigo Takamori, the leader of the last great samurai rebellion against the Meiji government and the engines of change, was moving down the slope of Kumamoto Castle under heavy fire. His progress was soon impeded as he took a bullet to the groin, forcing one of his followers to carry him down the mountain. Finally, they reached a secluded gate. Turning in the direction of the imperial palace, Takamori took a knife, plunged it into his belly, and committed seppuku, honorable ritual suicide. The Satsuma Rebellion was over. So was the age of the samurai.

Fast forward to the present, where a visit to any Japanese high school reveals groups of boys and girls clad in black hakama robes, their faces masked so that they look like angry wasps. With a scream and a lunge, they drive their wooden swords against a shoulder. A neck. Searching everywhere for an opening.

This is kendo, the “way of the sword.” As David A. Hall tells us in his Encyclopedia of Japanese Martial Arts, an exhaustive work drawing on decades of study and practice, the kendo tradition almost disappeared after the death of Takamori and disenfranchisement of his samurai brethren. With the Meiji emperor passing a set of laws known as the Haitorei edicts in an effort to outlaw the use of swords, long considered an emblem of samurai status, the romantic way of the sword survived only through the modern art of kendo and the other schools that Hall outlines in his book.

Americans might be familiar with the Haitorei edicts from Japanese media, even if they have never heard the term itself. For example, many will remember the scene in The Last Samurai (not exactly a paragon of historical authenticity, but it does provide some context) where the young samurai Nobutada, played by Shin Koyamada, is stopped in the street by some police officers, who promptly relieve him of sword and topknot to his cry of “Yamero!” “Stop!” As a member of the samurai class, which for centuries enjoyed the right of sword ownership as a status symbol, being deprived of his katana and wakizashi, a smaller sword, would have been especially humiliating for Nobutada. After all, in the words of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the famous Japanese shogun of old, “the sword is the soul of the warrior.”

For all its symbolic importance, the katana was not often the weapon of choice for a samurai on the field of battle. As David Hall tells us in his encyclopedia entry on kyuba no michi, or “way of the bow and horse,” the people of the Heian (794-1185) and Kamakura (1185-1333) periods identified warriorship with one’s skill as an archer, especially while on horseback. Later centuries saw the rise of firearms and squads of foot soldiers armed with yari, or long spears. Just as books and movies like The Three Musketeers and The Princess Bride have given rise to the romantic ideal of soldiers meeting each other one on one, exchanging witticisms as much as blows while they dance the dance of swords, modern takes on samurai history give the impression that battles rested on manful thrusts and parries of the katana. In reality, swords did not enjoy widespread use as a primary weapon until Japan’s invasion by the Mongols in the thirteenth century, and even afterward, the sword generally played its greatest part off the field of battle in duels or assassinations.

Others might know Haitorei through popular anime series Rurouni Kenshin, which depicts the adventures of the titular Kenshin after he renounces the life of an assassin. Events unfold during the dawn of the Meiji era, with everything from the first steam engine to Western dress exemplifying Japan’s transition to a new age. This being the case, Kenshin’s practice of carrying his sword openly at his side, even if it is a reverse-blade sword made for disabling rather than killing, often brings him trouble while out in public. We also learn another bit of history through the character of Saito Hajime, the Dirty Harry of the Japanese police force. Not that any of the heroes and villains of the series seem to pay much regard for the sword carrying law, but as a member of the police, Saito is one of the few who does so within the boundaries of the law.

This detail accords with the historical record. Even after the passing of the last Haitorei decree, one outlawing carrying of swords for the general public, Tokyo police were allowed to carry swords in the course of their duties. In fact, Kawaji Toshiyoshi, protégé of the illustrious Saigo Takamori and founder of the first modern police force in Tokyo, advocated for including the sword as part of police training in a book called Kendo Saikoron (On the Revitalization of Kendo). David Hall expands on this history in his encyclopedia, where he tells of the 1886 creation of a standardized training curriculum for police that included elements of kendo.

It is important to note that the term kendo did not come into use until the seventeenth century, when a period of peace prompted some practitioners of martial arts to include a spiritual element in their training. In this sense, while modern kendo reflects little of the kinds of stylized katana fights seen in films like Kill Bill, and perhaps only a shadow of the martial legacy of the samurai, it certainly stays true to the spirit those same samurai were expected to represent: one of courage and discipline, and the kind of sacrifice seen on the slopes of Kumamoto.

Note: David Hall appears at Japan Society today for a Japanese martial arts demonstration, featuring several local practicing groups. 

--Andres Oliver

The Greatest Samurai Film You've Never Seen

Geoffry O’Brien in his Criterion Film Essay notes:

In an era of Japanese filmmaking marked by such masterpieces as Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood and Masaki Kobayashi’s Harakiri, and when even the most routine samurai pictures tended to look very stylish indeed, The Sword of Doom stands out for the rigor and calligraphic pictorialism of its widescreen compositions.

The Guardian in 2005 published an obituary in honor of Director Kihachi Okamoto recalling him as “one of the least known of [Japanese] postwar directors in the west” despite being one of the “leading exponents” of the “most celebrated genre [of films] to come out of Japan.” Calling the neglect as “unwarranted”, the obituary highlighted the The Sword of Doom (1966) as one such movie that “gained a following” and “is still highly regarded.”

Incidentally, Wendell Jamieson of The New York Times recently recounted his long time fascination with Japanese movies depicting swordfights. Sword of Doom not only happens to be Jamieson’s favorite but one that his Kendo teacher Noboru Kataoka holds in high regards “as the greatest sword fight film of them all.” Jamieson portrays the action in the movie as follows:

Nakadai’s fluid and catlike movements seem hardly human — his maniacal grin adds another level of malevolence — but are almost balletic in their elegance. He completes his strokes with graceful upward arcs even after they have done their damage.

If the beautifully captured art of sword fighting have profoundly captivated many, the Zen-like portrayal of the human condition depicted through the protagonist of the film, Ryunosuke, remains yet another source of fascination. O’Brien, brings to our attention the juxtaposition of opposites in Ryunosuke:

Ryunosuke is at once hero and villain, demon and potential bodhisattva, and Tatsuya Nakadai’s stunning performance incarnates perfectly the paradox at the heart of the character: Does he act or is he acted upon? In what sense does he choose his destiny? He seems at times the spectator of his own destructive course, alternately anguished or blackly amused but essentially powerless to change what happens.

Similarly, Bruce Edgar’s take on Sword of Doom encapsulates wonderfully the portrayal of contradictions and Zen-ness in the film:

His Ryunosuke (“a man from hell,” as one character puts it) is one of the screen’s more memorable psychopaths, a passive-aggressive whose bloodlust is portrayed with dead calm, revealed by the tiniest motion of an eye, the trace of a smile, or the tense position of his body as he ponders killing.

Tonight, Japan Society concludes its Zen & Its Opposite: Essential (& Turbulent) Japanese Art House film series with the [sold-out] screening of Sword of Doom at 7:30pm. The movie illustrates the Realm of the Asuras or the realm of anger, jealousy, and constant war in the “Six Planes of Existence”- a Buddhist concept commonly referred as “Six Paths” or (Rokudō or Rokudō-rinne) in Japan—within “the realm of Birth and Death” (Samsara).

Directed by Kihachi Okamoto, Sword of Doom is based on the novel Daibosatsu Toge or The Pass of the Great Buddha by Kaizan Nakazato which first appeared as a newspaper serial in 1913. After being published for forty-one volumes spanning three decades, the novel was left incomplete due to author’s death. Okamoto, on the other hand, has had direct experience of war being drafted at the age of 19 as a student at Meiji University. His encounter with war and violence is said to have influenced his film making career deeply. After coming back from the war in 1947, Okamoto joined the Toho studios and worked with several directors until his directorial debut came in 1958 working on melodramas. Later, he specialized in action films and joined Toei to become the “undisputed star of Toei’s ninkyo eiga yakuza films.”

A.T.

News Blast

Copyright © 2010 AFP

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