By Alex Deleon <Filmfestivals.com>
Scanning the trade papers on day three I noticed an add for this film which I knew I had to see no matter what ...I had been a great Yakuza eiga fan in Japan in the seventies and Ken Takakura (Takakura Ken) was a top favorite of mine -- I saw at least forty or fifty of his major films and loved them all. (He made nearly 200 altogether) -- It soon became obvious to me that he was much more than a taciturn sword slinging movie star but a national idol and role model highly respected by his fans for his reputed personal integrity and disdain for the limelight.
However, since this was a market screening I had to email the publicity agent to obtain a pass which was readily accorded. At the screening room in the Gray d'Albion on Sunday at 13:30 I was surprised to find a rather sparse turnout -- less than a dozen viewers besides myself -- undoubtedly true connoisseurs of Japanese cinema and the Yakuza (modern gangster) genre.
One reason is perhaps the relative obscurity of the Japanese gangster film genre and correspondingly, of this particular Japanese megastar, in the west. Prior to the arrival of Ken on the scene the biggest star in Japan by far was Toshiro Mifune, hero of numerous Kurosawa samurai flicks. Because of the influence of Kurosawa internationally Mifune became the only Japanese movie star known by name in the west and even acquired a considerable Gaijin (--disdainful Japanese word for white foreigner) fan following.
From the sixties on Takakura Ken began to eclipse the Mifune phenomenon in Japan and was greatly popular in China and other East Asian countries as well. However, except among certain Japanophile directors such as Paul Schrader who wrote a definitive study of Yakuza Eiga in Film Comment, January 1974, Martin Scorcese, and a few others, "Ken San" as he was affectionately known to his legions of Japanese fans, remained all but unknown to western audiences.
I say "all but" only because Ken did appear in a couple of lesser known Hollywood productions, but these films were seen as star vehicles for his American co-stars, to wit: "The Yakuza" (Sydney Polllock), 1975, starring Robert Mitchum, and "Black Rain" (Ridley Scott) 1989, starring Mike Douglas, which went by with little general notice because of the rather abstruse Japan based subject matter.
The current documentary, is clearly a labor of love directed by one time Japanese actor (e.g., Kurosawa's "Ran", 1983) Yuichi Hibi, who took on the job after many well known Japanese directors turned it down as a project "too hot to handle" -- difficulty with rights to original Yakuza eiga film clips, Ken's controversial marital breakup, the delicacy of his private life in general, etcetera.
While the bulk of the film is taken up with interviews with Japanese friends and colleagues, among them leading Japanese director Yoji Yamada (a regular at Berlin for many years) all of whom demonstrate tremendous respect for Ken both as an actor and a private person, there are also extensive interviews with Hollywood personalities who worked with him.
Paul Schrader who wrote the script for Pollock's "The Yakuza" talks of Ken's unique position in Japanese cinema to set the scene, then there is a long section with Mike Douglas telling of how much he was directly influenced by Ken's understated but powerful acting style during the shooting of "Black Rain" and then Jan de Bont, the DOP on the film describes what it was like working with Ken San from the cinematographer's point of view.
Says de Bont; "He had incredibly expressive eyes.He acted with his eyes so that he didn't have to make superfluous body movements. Moreover he was the only actor I ever worked with who didn't have a single bad side. You could shoot him from any angle and the shot would work. He never asked for retakes and he was a perfect gentleman. It was a pleasure to work with him".
Mike Douglas Said that what he learned from Ken was how to act internally. You saw everything from his eyes. He was a Natural Master of minimal acting.
Douglas is seen at several points in the film and his admiration for Ken as an actor is clearly boundless.
John Woo, action thriller specialist from Hong Kong also appears in this documentary, and was strongly influenced by Ken's movies when they were first shown in China back in the seventies. Woo is now preparing a Chinese remake of one of Ken's best known films, "Manhunt" (original title 'Kimi yo, Fundo no kawa o watare" 1975)
Manhunt was the first foreign film released in China after Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution ended, and it was a huge hit making Ken an overnight star in the Middle Kingdom.
In the original, a lawman played by Takakura is framed for robbery and rape, and sets out to clear his name -- an emblematic Ken san type role. In the current film Mr.Woo speaks at length in Chinese about his admiration for Ken and his unique qualities as an actor.
Towards the end of the film we meet Ken's sister who talks of him from a wholly different family perspective.
Ken, who hated ceremonies, didn't show up for his beloved mother's funeral, because, as he put it, he knew her well enough. However, when he came home he spent an entire hour alone in the room where her ashes were kept to say a long personal farewell. He didn't show up at a best friend's wedding but sent an extremely warm hand-written letter exhibiting masterful Japanese calligraphy. There are so many personal touches of this kind that you leave the theater with a real three dimensional sense of who this actor -- this great actor -- was as a human being, behind the fact that he was also the biggest movie star, of massed produced Yakuza B movies for the most part, but later in his carrier of serious non gangster dramas such as "Yellow Handkerchief" by master director Yoji Yamada.
Takakura Ken, to put it one way, combined the charisma and power of a John Wayne with the sensibility of a Montgomery Clift.
It is very much to director Yuichi Hibi's credit that he captured all of this in this 100 minute biographical masterpiece.
In a post screening interview Mr. Hibi who is now New York based, told me that the picture is still not quite finished. He needs to insert an interview with Martin Scorcese who was another American admirer of Ken's. He rushed back to New York from Cannes in order to accomplish this extra insert in time for the soon upcoming Shanghai film festival where the completed document will have its real premiere.
