This
movie Onmyoji
(also distributed as The
Yin-Yang Master) is set in Japan, the years
are around 1100's. The young, carefree, twentysomething Lord Minamoto
Hiromasa isn't interested in politics, having no thoughts of power-struggles,
and generally loving to be alive with no grand narratives at all.
He wouldn't have believed it if someone told him he's gonna be
the defender of the realm against an all-evil scheme involving
demons of all sorts, and that without him the Emperor of Japan
would have been crushed to oblivion along with the entire country. |
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And
he would have disbelieved it even stronger if told that in that
sacred mission he would be one in a pair consisting of himself
and the greatest but notorious shaman of the era, Lord Abe Seimei
(the one he eyes with suspicion here in the picture). Doesn't
care a fig about political power himself, Abe Seimei is a reluctant
hero as well; he only saves Japan because Minamoto Hiromasa wants
him to, and he loves this sidekick that much.
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'Sherlock'
Seimei's first case brought them together: Lord Kaneie (might
be a Fujiwara clansman) finds a fruit growing on a cypress at
his backyard. Hiromasa, when called to figure out what to do,
thinks it is fun to let it be, but Kaneie forces him to fetch
Abe Seimei to get rid of the fruit and the curse embedded therein.
As a clan of warriors, the real-life Minamotos were not detectives;
instead they have been famous as great archers and swordsmen.
Hiromasa is rather beneath the clan's treshold of mastery in warcraft. |
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The bridge
connecting the city with Abe Seimei's suburban estate lets him
know who's coming and for what purpose. Right in the middle of
the bridge is the unseen boundaries of the real and the supernatural.
The cart hauled by a bullock here means a nobleperson is on board
(in this case Minamoto Hiromasa); princes and lords rode on such
vehicles those days, instead of carriages pulled by horses. |
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Abe
Seimei's front yard is let to go wild like this, confusing Hiromasa
who's accustomed to neatly-kept gardens around the palace.
The
spirit of the real historical period is such that makes the dramatic
stuff in this movie believable; the Heian years were characterized
by courtly elegance, decorous taste, and aspiration to everything
noble and beautiful.
Music,
dancing, calligraphy, painting, and poetry thrived best in this
era of Japanese history. Poems were (as they should, I think!)
very much alive in themselves, and they were parts of daily life,
sort of functional items in private and public, personal and social
setting alike. |
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'Heian'
(today's Kyoto) means 'City of Peace'. Emperor Kuammu moved the
court there in 794.The main street of this Japanese capital city
in 1100's is one of the wonders in this movie. Abe Seimei asks
Minamoto Hiromasa to go downtown with him, tracking the source
of Prince Kaneie's supernatural annoyance. |
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Faithful
to the spirit of the era that lavishly pampered the aesthetes,
Hiromasa is a great flutist; but even with this superb melody-weaving
and the heart-throbbing looks he fails to get the woman he loves.
She's one of the Emperor's concubines, that's why; being left
behind, she crosses the border of goodness, right into the darkest
recesses of human souls. |
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Ito
Hideaki plays Minamoto no Hiromasa (anglicized:
'Lord Hiromasa of the Minamoto clan'), a flute-playing swordsman
attending to the Mikado (Emperor). Nomura Mansai
takes up the role of the legendary mediaeval magi Abe no Seimei
('Lord Seimei of the Abe clan'). Seimei is the Sherlock Holmes
of the supernatural sphere of the era, while Hiromasa is the constantly-amazed
Watson. Ito is gorgeously lovable as usual, and the part fits
him perfectly. Nomura plays his part magnificently, giving us
a 100% believability although some of the props and setting are
obviously disastrous -- such as the tomb of Prince Sawara and
Doson's spying bird, which are too unconvincing even to be quasi-real
and too badly-created to be surreal.
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The
antagonist, fellow-magi of Abe Seimei's, named Doson, official
shaman for the empire (that's the meaning of the word 'onmyoji'
to begin with), is vividly alive because the man playing the part
is one of the greatest Japanese actors of this century, Sanada
Hiroyuki (see the man in red above these lines). Sanada
plays a stereotype here, so it's utterly no sweat for him. When
Tom Cruise filmed The
Last Samurai (2003), a fictionalized
story of the Saigo clan (in the movie it is called Matsumoto)
in their hopeless fight against the new order of things in the
Meiji era, late 1800's, Sanada was given a part as a Saigo swordsmaster,
backing up a fellow greatest actor of the day, Watanabe
Ken. This, too, is a stereotypical role. For the best
of Sanada Hiroyuki, see 'his own' movie The
Twilight Samurai (2003).
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