Customer Reviews

An Actor's Revenge [VHS]

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Ichikawa supposedly made this movie "to see what cinema could do." He pulls out all the stops and the result is a masterpiece of visual splendor, wit and style that is stunning as well as very entertaining. The story of a man taking revenge against the people who killed his parents is an old cliched melodrama that was assigned to Ichikawa by the film studio. Supposedly the studio was punishing him because his previous films were not commercial enough. But Ichikawa turns necessity into a virtue by glorifying the kitsch while at the same time keeping an ironic stance.

Ichikawa uses the widescreen to full effect in adopting the aesthetics of the Kabuki theater. The sheer visual inventiveness of the movie makes for the best kind of eye candy. There are bold splashes of primary colors and dramatic, very theatrical lighting. Some sets are intentionally artificial-looking while others are not. Somehow the two styles don't clash but instead portray the perfect intermingling of theater and cinema. Similarly, the use of jazz and lounge music(!) seem perfectly appropriate.

Hasegawa, the lead actor, played the same role in a previous version of the movie nearly 30 years earlier. A man who acts like a woman (both on-stage and off), seducing a woman young enough to be his daughter lends a touch of the bizarre which just makes things more interesting. The movie is graced by Ayako Wakao, at the height of her beauty.

If film is about the pursuit of style, Ichikawa Kon does the best. From one scene to another, Kon demonstrates that the pleasure of movie does not lie in "content," but the stylish movement.

Kon experiments this philosophy in his other films, such as "The Tokyo Olympiad" (a documentary of the Tokyo Olympics in 1964) and "The Makioka Sisters."

It's truly a shame that this VHS version is out of print. Someone MUST release this film on DVD.

The greatest difficulty for the viewer is in deciding how to take this film. The story at its most basic is this: a kabuki actor famed for playing women finds the three men who drove his father to madness and his mother to suicide. Bent on revenge he takes advantage of the love of the daughter of one of these men and turns the men against eachother until, in the end all three are dead as is the daughter. Having never wanted to have taken this revenge and grieved at the death of the daughter, the actor leaves and is never seen again. However we are not meant to be emotionally rapt through all of this. There is a backing cast of wacky and sometimes noble characters, mostly theives, that bring a great bit of light humour into the mix. As it is, we must take it as neither drama nor comedy, but something approximating both. It is no masterpiece of cinema, but it ends up being a very enjoyable film to watch. The lighting and cinematographical technique used throughout is very impressive. It creates a dramatic setting similar to the stage on kabuki company performs their fanciful dramas. This film too is another fanciful production.

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