While scrolling through Netflix on Saturday, Terri and I stumbled upon the documentary series Age of Samurai Battle for Japan. Since we had been spending many of our weekend afternoons binging the films of the legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa we thought that it would be something that we would find interesting. From watching films like Yojimbo and Seven Samurai, we had some idea of how the warlords of Japan had fought bloody campaigns to take control of the country. Thanks to this really great documentary series we now understand the complex history of the Samurai and how their exploits inspired the works of Kurosawa that we both love so much.
As a brutal civil war rages across 16th century Japan, powerful samurai warriors rise up to crush their rivals and become the first leader in almost a century to reunite the nation and rule all of Japan. Many will rise, most will fall, and one will build a dynasty that will stand for over two centuries.
This six-part limited series features dynamic reenactments and expert commentaries that bring to life the tumultuous history and power struggles of a warring 16th-century feudal Japan.
In an interview with Screen Rant director Matthew Booi had this to say about the challenges of producing an entertaining, yet historically accurate documentary series:
The biggest challenge filmmakers have when telling big-picture history is, how do you avoid chronology? Chronology isn't entertaining. What is entertaining is active protagonists trying to achieve goals. We were really lucky with this story. We really focused on three individuals who completely changed the course of Japanese history. We felt it was essential to get down to the ground and try to tell these stories on the ground. What's so incredible about these stories is how you're reminded constantly of how similar we are to the people of this period. But there are certain things about the samurai culture that really are unique. For example, they had something called a head viewing ceremony; after a massive battle, the winning general would sit and be presented with the heads of all the fallen soldiers from the other side. These heads would be painted, make-up would be put on them. It would be kind of garish. On one hand, it was kind of humiliation for the fallen, but on the other hand, it was a way of honoring those men who lost their lives. Again, it's an incredible thing about the period. A mix of unbelievable violence with incredible honor and duty. You see it with the Seppuku, which is ritual suicide. There's a number of them in the show, where people get into positions where they cannot honorably defend themselves. So instead of running and fleeing like the vast majority of us would do, they sit down and the ritually kill themselves And we've seen this in other cultures, but the degree to which it's practiced in this period is remarkable. The obsession with honor and with legacy. I think it's quite remarkable.
Booi went on to explain how the Samurai differed from other warrior clans that were prevalent around the globe at the same time in history:
The panache of the samurai and their relationship to violence... I think it's important to understand, too, that samurai in the 16th century had no monopoly on violence. The 16th century, as a whole, is probably one of the most violent periods in human history. If you look at it across the globe, you're talking about the Inquisition, and incredibly violent battles that were wracking Europe at the time. Nobody had a monopoly on this. But a strong case could be made that nobody performed it the same way as the Japanese samurai did. It's just such a fascinating story. And I think people are going to be so drawn in by it, the deeper you get into it. I think that was the real beauty of having six hours where we really got to lean into the stories. What we also did to make it easier to track it, despite the fact that we're dealing with almost five decades of history, we're really only focusing on three families that are incredibly interconnected. It becomes almost like a Godfather story, or Game of Thrones, where one of these guys is going to pull it off at the end, but you don't know who. And the one who does pull it off in the end, it's really quite surprising. We've met all these people in the first episode. And over the six episodes, we chart the rise and fall, the fracturing of alliances, and how one of them ultimately pulls it off. I think that part of the storytelling will hopefully really resonate with people. It's not a giant survey at everything that happened. It's really a deep look at the relationships between three families, really.
Terri and I are both looking forward to finishing the series and then diving right back into some classic Japanese cinema.
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