Links
Chambara movies (literally "swordfight" movies) served much the
same role in Japan as westerns in the US, mythologising a portion of
the country's history, while at the same time providing powerful
icons of national identity. Like westerns, they used an idiom that
rapidly became well-defined to make movies with a wider focus.
Fortunately for us, many of these movies are intelligent,
well-crafted and just plain damn fun to watch. To further the
analogy, Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" and "Yojimbo" have both been
remade as westerns (and Yojimbo again more recently as a '30's
gangster movie).
Anyway, these movies are now becoming widely available even
through mass-consumption outlets. There's a lot of stuff about
Chambara on the web, but here's a couple of decent starting
places:
Criterion has released most of the movies of Akira
Kurosawa - one of the most famous and arguably one of the most
gifted of the directors who have been strongly associated with
chambara movies
You can check out the work of many other directors at the
excellent "All movie guide" starting with their list (and they have
plenty more - try a few other keywords) of samurai
movies.
Gold
Rush Games also has a pretty comprehensive list of Chambara
movies in support of their Sengoku source book for Fuzion.
I have received a lot of feedback - all good, I'm glad to say - on
the Sengoku pages. And in the sincerest form of flattery, several
other people have been inspired to set up their own feudal Japanese
games. They've included new material as well, so I'd recommend
visiting:
Anthony
Warrell's very nice site, using GURPS.
A site using the
classic Bushido sytem.
and my friend Brian
Smaller's Site, using Hero system
On the other side of the China sea, an equally vigorous movie
industry has sprung up, centered about Hong Kong and southern China
(although perhaps unfairly generically labelled "Hong Kong action
cinema"). Less stylised than chambara movies, Hong Kong and Chinese
action movies have drawn heavily on quasi-historical dramas and
legends - especially the wu-xia or "flying swordsmen" novels. This is
really "quasi-historical" - history with the good bits left in! That
means scheming eunuchs, flying swordsmen, assassins with mystical
powers, ghosts helpful and malign, demons, gods and whatever else can
be squeezed into the special effect budgets. Hong Kong action movies
often play fast and loose with such trivialities as logic and plot
consistency, but at their best they are more flamboyant and faster
paced than any other cinema on the planet. It comes as no surprise to
afficionados to see "classic bits" now popping up in the latest
Hollywood summer blockbusters (unfortunately, generally unleavened by
the cynical self-mocking wit that balances the bombast in HK
movies).
There's a lot more to HK movies than sword-swinging princes and
lovelorn ghosts, and more sites devoted to these movies than you can
shake any number of sticks at, but plenty of info can be found on the
web.
The samurai legends that gave rise to the chambara movies also
inspired a host of writers and artists. The fiction field is too
broad to go into here, but samurai comics - generally aimed at a more
mature audience than the US market - have been popular favourites for
decades. These have in turn served as springboards for animated
movies (or anime) of wildly varying quality. Like HK cinema, anime is
far broader than medieval Japan (even quasi-medieval Japan!) but it's
a popular subject.
A good place to start exploring the wild and twisted world of
manga (Japanese comics) and anime - and to gain an interesting and
slightly disturbing look into the Japanese communal psyche as well -
can be found here,
but there's far more stuff about anime on the web than anyone could
ever cover. As a little helper, I've included another link to a page
covering the excellent samurai-inspired anime "Legend
of Jubei/Ninja Scroll" which has the same sort of blending of
horror and classical samurai legend I've aimed for with Sengoku.
The other source which has inspired me (and given me a great deal
of pleasure) is Stan Sakai's "Usagi Yojimbo" - a cartoon telling the
episodic story of a ronin and his wanderings in a Japan filled with
sword-wielding foemen, political intrigue and supernatural creatures.
And yeah, the lead character is a rabbit. You want to make something
of that?
Another great samurai manga is the long running "Lone Wolf and
Cub" (aka Babycart Assassin). If anyone can give me some links (that
work!) to information on this strip, I'd appreciate it. I know
they're out there somewhere!