Yagyu ichizoku no imbo

Here’s another murder rap to keep you dancing.

According to my Eiga Hi-Ho homies Yoshiki and Yanashita, Sengoku Jietai 1549, the recent hit remake of Sonny Chiba’s old Time Slip (AKA G.I. Samurai) - an adaptation of a 1971 novel by Ryo Hanmura - was originally to have been directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure, Kairo). His original vision for the film, about a company of modern day soldiers sent back in time to the era of the Warring States, was to have been modeled after Robert Aldrich’s harrowing World War II film Attack! (1956) rife with crisis of command and solders behaving badly. But when his scenario was shown to the Japanese Self Defense Forces, who were to provide logistic and technical support for the film, they said that the JSDF must not be shown in a negative light and all the orders given out by superior officers in the film must be carried out perfectly to the letter. Exit Kurosawa. Enter less distinguished Godzilla film director Masaaki Tezuka to fill his place. 

Something like this kinda happened before. As I wrote in the US DVD notes for the original 1979 Sengoku Jietai film, “The Japanese Self Defense Forces were asked to lend their support to the production, but upon reading the script - full of mutiny and soldiers going AWOL - they declined to assist. So the filmmakers had to find surplus military hardware, or, in the case of the featured tank, actually build it themselves.”

The military telling the Japanese film industry how to make movies? As Yoshiki points out, this is not a phenomenon particluar to this strange planet called Nippon. “It’s just like Top Gun,” he says.

For a conspiratorial encore, he mentions to me the next day that the Hachiko, the famed and beloved loyal dog who waited for his dead master everyday at Shibuya station, only went there because the owner of some yakitori house was feeding him scraps.

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Even more Yoshiki: he is currently designing the new DVD Teruo Ishii box set, to be released by Toei Video in October. Here’s the sublime poster he's whipped up for the project, which is being produced in collaboration with Eiga Hi-Ho.

Comments

[Joseph Luster]

I wonder if the JSDF would have advised more awesome, awkwardly placed music in G.I. Samurai.

"Friendly....ooooooooh frieeeeeeendlyyyyy!"

[Patrick3]

I guess if they'd had some really good music on the soundtrack, you know, like Kenny Loggins or Berlin on the soundtrack, it would a been a million seller. Maybe it was just the awkward placement. Maybe they couldn't see so well because of well...their eyes.

[Kojiro Abe]

Interesting little yarn. I have no interest in seeing the new Sengoku Jietai movie. For one thing, Sonny Chiba's not in it and secondly, it's directed by that hack Tezuka. His Godzilla films left me really cold (though I did like Tokyo SOS alright). He's not as much of a hack as Takao Okawara, but he's no Honda, Kaneko, Kitamura or even Jun Fukuda.

Now Lorelei: Witch of the Pacific Ocean, now there's a film I really want to see. I hear Higuchi's directing a remake of Submersion of Japan. That outta be good, though personally I'd rather see Kitamura take on a remake of Prophecies of Nostradamus, but we know Toho would never remake THAT film since they probably won't give it a fucking DVD release until around 2045.