USA WESTERN AND JAPANESE SAMURAI MOVIES

In my youth, the Woody Woodpecker club had Saturday morning shows in the Kewalo Theater of Kakaako in Honolulu.  Then again, my mind is faulty, could have been a matinee.  It started with previews, a newsreel, cartoons, a serial (around 15 chapters, one per week), then a war, Tarzen or cowboy film.  Sometimes two.  Somewhere during that period there were audience participation contests.  Cost?  I think 12 cents.  A drink and popcorn cost an extra 15 cents or so.  Today, a typical movie outing would set you back $20/person, and more

I particularly remember cowboy chapters that captured our attention and kept us hanging to the next week.  Remember Donald Barry de Acosta.?  Of course not, because he was Red Ryder.  Or Charles Starrett Better (Durango Kid), William Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy), Harold Smith (who became Jay Silverheels, who played Tonto), Renaldo Duncan (Cisco Kid, left)...Jack Moore (The Lone Ranger)?

So tried to find a list of best actors in westerns, and found one by Slash Films of the top 20 actors:

• #1    Clint Eastwood
• #2    John Wayne
• #3    Gary Cooper
• #4    James Stewart
• #5    Yul Brynner
• #10  Marlon Brando

• 
  #14  Paul Newman
• #16  Buster Keaton
• #18  Alan Ladd
• #20  Ed Harris
• Not one from my above list.

Okay, what about the the 50 greatest western movies ever made?  That article tells you where they can be streamed.

• #1    The Searchers (1956), Rotten Tomatoes 94/88, John Wayne, Natalie Wood.
• #2    The Unforgiven (1992), RT 60/60, Burt Lancaster, Audrey Hepburn, Audie Murphy.

• #3    Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), RT 96/95...wow, Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards.

• #4    Stagecoach (1939), RT 100/86, John Wayne, Claire Trevor, John Carradine.

• 
  I can go on and on, but here are a few highlights.
• #7    The Wild Bunch (1969).
• #13  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kit (1969).
• #17  High Noon (1952).
• #26  True Grit (2020).
• #36  The Magnificent Seven (1960)

American has a colorful history of cowboys and gunslingers.  

• One top ten outlaw list shows Jesse James at #1, Billy the Kid at #2, Butch Cassidy #3 and Harry Longbaugh (Sundance Kid) #4.  
• #6 was Belle Starr.  Jesse James used her family's home as a hideout.  That is her above when she was arrested by a team of U.S. marshals.  

• 
  #9 was Etta Place (below, a real photo of her with the Sundance Kid), a member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch.  Did you know that one story has her with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when they were all killed in Bolivia?  By the way, this is Butch Cassidy to the right.

• 
  Coincidentally, I just finished watching the 1969 film, The Wild Bunch, with William Holden and a whole host of stars.  I'm giving the story away, but Robert Ryan is the only one who survives.  Such graphic violence you don't see in films today, even on streaming channels.  Rotten Tomatoes bestowed 91/90 scores.    By the way, another film of the same year, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, with Paul Newman and Robert Redford, got RT ratings of 89/92.  Katherine Ross played Etta Place.

Cowboy characters and samurai warriors came around the same time in history.  In America:

• Vaqueros went to America from Spain in the 1500s.  The first known was Hernan Cortes, a Moorish slave, who arrived in 1519.
• Here is an 1857 photo of Buffalo Bill Cody (seating on the right) with Wild Bill Hickok (on the left).  Standing is a famous cowboy of his time, Texas Jack Omohundro.

For Japan, I start with women samurai.  There is a vague family rumor that one grandmother of my father's father, Kenjiro Takahashi, might have been a female samurai.  Here is a two-part search I made on Hokkaido in 2009:  Part 1 and Part 2.  That led to another roots journey the following year, for it turned out that that Kenjiro's parents had left Akita, and he was born in Otaru.  In Akita I found the gravestone of a kin.  Would like to return someday for a more serious search.

So anyway, here are the Top 10 Women Samurai and Ninjas.  Some are anime characters, so this can't be a serious list.

• Tsukikage Ran
• Miho
• Tomoe Gozen
• There are seven more

Then there is the last great female samurai, Nakano Takeko. who was described as especially beautiful and quite a warrior.  This is a recreation of her photo.

10 facts about Japan's female samurai warriors.

• 
  One of the first was Empress Jingu in the years 169-269.  She led the invasion of Silla, the present-day Korea.
• Their main weapon was a naginata, a pole with a curved blade.
• Almost a millennium ago, Tomoe Gozen was a noted warrior.  She might have been the first true general of Japan.
• You can read the rest here.

Now to the guys, the samurai class arose in the 12th century and lasted until the 1870's when the Meiji Revolution abolished them.  The 14 greatest Japanese samurai of all-time.  This list was updated two days ago.

• #1    Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645)
• #2    Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), who became a shogun
• #3    Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598), with Ieyasu, they unified Japan
• #4    Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582)
• #14  Tomoe Gozen (1157-1247), mentioned above
• Read the rest here.

However, All About Japan has a different view, for this is their Top 12:

• #1    Oda Nobunaga
• #2    Tokugawa Ieyasu
• #3    Toyotomi Hideyoshi
• #6    Miyamoto Musashi
• #12  Tomoe Gozen

• 
  An interesting honorable mention is William Adams, the first Englishman to visit Japan, around 1600.  While he never fought in a battle, he was the inspiration for James Clavell's novel Shogun.

• 
  Wonderlist has another top 10, and they pretty much have it similar to All About Japan, with #1 Oda Nobunaga, #2 Toyotomi Hideyoshi, #3 Miyamoto Musashi and #7 Tokugawa Ieyasu.
• Other lists tend to have Oda Nobunaga at #1, so by acclamation, the top samurai in Japan is Oda Nobunaga.

That aside, what are the Top 10 Samurai Movies?  From Movie Web:

• 
  #1    Seven Samurai (1954)
• #2    Harakiri (1962)
• #3    Ran (1985)
• #4    Sanjuro (1962)
• #9    Yojimbo (1961)

From Flickside, the Top 20 Samurai Movies:

• #1    Seven Samurai
• #2    Harakiri
• #4    Yojimbo
• Beginning to look familiar

Screen Rant uses Rotten Tomatoes to select the top samurai movies, and, of course:

• 100%  Seven Samurai (1954), HBO Max
• 100%  Harakiri (1962), can purchase on Prime Video

• 
  100%  Sanjuro (1962), can purchase on Prime Video
• 100%  Samurai Rebellion (1967), Criterion Channel
• 100%  Lady Snowblood (1973), HBO Max

•  99%  The Twilight Samurai (2002)
• The list goes on.

No question that The Seven Samurai is the best samurai movie.  

The top samurai actors are:

• #1  Toshiro Mifune.     He passed away in 1997 at the age of 77.  Watch him in an interview.
• #2  Tatsuya Nakadai...and again.  He is now 90 years old.  Watch him comment on five masters.
• 
  #3  Shintaro Katsu, who is Zatoichi.  The Criterion has a boxset of 25 films, and #1 is Zatoichi Goes to the Fire Festival.
• Here is a list of the rest.

Of course, Akira Kurosawa was the master director.  A long message from Kurosawa.   Here are George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola on him.

I should have shown this yesterday.  Girl's Day in Japan, called Hinamatsuri.

-

THE SEARCH: FOR KENJIRO'S GRANDMOTHERS (Part 1)

I just submitted the final galley proofs for my third book:  SIMPLE SOLUTION Essays.  The cover will be the same color as Pearl's Yellow Tree, and the book is dedicated to her.  Publication should be later this month.

Book #4 could be one of three:

a.  The Venus Syndrome:  The Novel

b.  Pearl's Ashes, which featured the Taj Majal earlier this year, and continues on my next around the world adventure.  Sometime next year, after a couple more of these expeditions, I hope to compile these experiences into a book.

c.  The Search: for Kenjiro's Grandmothers will most likely become book #4, for I will be concluding my roots search, spending some time in Akita, where Kenjiro's grandmothers lived, catching a boat to Hokkaido, on a path his parents took around 1880, then, on to Utashinai, where in the later 1890's, Kenjiro left to go to America.  What particularly intrigues me is that one of Kenjiro's grandmothers could have been a female samurai.

So I've been researching the life of the samurai, and learned things quite different from Japanese movies.

You might have seen the movie, The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise.  The timing was close, because Emperor Meiji abolished samurai rights in 1873 and that last battle occurred in 1876.  The first samurai could well have been more than a millennium earlier, Emperor Temmu in the 7^th Century.

During the reign of the samurai, marriages were arranged, and as pederasty was practiced in Greece at their prime, and might well also have been prevalent among the ruling Nazi hierarchy, such was the lifestyle.  For almost a millennium, the personal life of a samurai was not as it is today.

Most of the samurai movies focused on the 16^th and 17^th Century, beginning with Nobunaga Oda, who smartly copied firearms from the Portuguese.  He was betrayed by a general, killed in 1582, and many more samurai movies later, Ieyasu Tokugawa rose to Shogun in 1603.  One of the problems with Japanese history and my ability to make any sense is that he changed his name at least twice, and when posthumously enshrined in Nikko, given yet another name:  Tosho Daigongen.

The end was facilitated by Commodore Matthew Perry, who in 1854 forced Japan to open up.  The Tokugawa government fell and power was restored to Emperor Meiji in 1868.

This long period of peace meant that samurai became courtiers and administrators, not warriors.  There were five classes:  samurai, followed by peasants, artisans, merchants and outcasts.

So was this the end of the samurai?  Not really, because Bushido, the way of the warrior, was later taken on by the military, and after World War II, certain leaders of the economic renaissance.

Next, were there female samurai?

-

In the western Gulf of Mexico, Tropical Storm Hermine strengthened up to 65 MPH and is making landfall near the Mexico-Texas border.

In the western Pacific, Tropical Storm Malou went right over Cheju Island and will roll over much of Honshu, including Tokyo, but should have weakened by then.

-

JAPAN

Here is a summary of the Republican debate two months before Iowa votes.  Time magazine feels Nikki Haley won.

Our entire five week journey will be spent only in Japan.  I really don't know much about the history of Japan, so learn with me:

• 
  Human life in Japan began nearly 40,000 years ago during the Stone Age.  Tools first came from Northern China about 34,000 years ago, then advancements were introduced from Siberia 20,000 years ago.
• The Jomon period began in 14,000 BC and continued to 300 BC.
• By the start of 300 BC, rice farming and the metallurgy of iron and bronze arose during the Yayoi period.
• 
  The documented history goes back to 250 AD, the Kofu period, when Shintoism was introduced and the Imperial House began to rise.  A Torii Gate sits at the entrance of a Shinto temple.  If in the water, then adjacently on land.

• 
  From 538 during the Asuka period, when there was a big leap in political, social and artistic aspects of the society.  Buddhism was brought to the country from Korea, through China and originally India.
• Japan began using era names from 645 during the reign of Emperor Kotoku, and very first one was called Taika.  But the use of era, period and empire is confusing, for eras seem to have later replaced periods with the Meiji Era in 1968, and all three can be applied depending on the author.  Part of this confusion has to do with use of nengō, when changes sometimes came about by a decision of a court official,
• 
  The Nara period started in 710 when the elite adopted much of Chinese culture.
• The Heian period from 794 to 1185 saw the peak of Taoism, Buddhism, poetry, literature and art.
• 
  Beginning in 1185 with the Kamakura period, Minamoto Yoritomo became the first shogun in 1192 out of Kamakura.  
• He established a system of military government that took the country up to Meiji period.
• This began the series of hereditary military leaders appointed by the emperor, although this was just form, as the the shogun held the real power.

• 
  The shogun had under his domain daimyo, or wealthy landowners, who employed the samurai warrior class.
• The dominant major shogunates--Kamakura, Ashikaga and Tokugawa--ended in 1868.
• The term is still loosely used for retired prime ministers.

• 
  The Modern period actually began in 1603 through the Tokugawa shogunate, led first by Ieyasu, who was shogun only for two years.
• In 1868 during the Boshin War, the Tokugawa shogunate fell and was replaced by the Meiji Empire, led by Emperor Meiji.
• Japan switched from an isolated society under feudal rule into a modern one,
• Ended in 1912 when Meiji died.

• 
  Emperor Taisho took over and ruled for 14 years during the Taisho democracy, when political parties ascended.
• Taisho died of a heart attack in 1926, bringing in the Showa period, when Japan shifted into ultra-nationalism, fascism and totalitarianism.  
• Emperor Hirohito reigned during the Great Depression, sparking advances by the country into China and Mongolia, leading into World War II.

• 
  After losing WWII, Japan was occupied by Allied powers for seven years, and converted to a democratic, constitutional monarchy.
• Seven Japanese leaders were sentenced to death and were executed.
• Emperor was spared for vague reasons.

• 
  Akihito was emperor during the Heisei period from 1989 to 2019.
• The Reiwa period then began when Akihito abdicated, and eldest son Naruhito ascended to the throne as the 126th Emperor of Japan.

About foreign relations:

• There is of course a long history of trade and cultural relationships with China and Korea, beginning in the third century BC, for Korea served as the exchange point of social input from China, heavily influencing what is today Japan in architecture, cuisine, religion and philosophy.  

• 
  Through much of history there were various wars and alliances between Korea and Japan, with the Japanese generally occupying Korea for periods, especially from 1882.  
• Large scale trade with China, however, only began in the 1860s, until wars and confrontations between 1880 and 1945 again restricted relationships.
• 

  The first European affiliation occurred in 1543 when Portuguese explorers landed in the south, Tanegashima.  
• The contention between Japan and China allowed Portugal to become an intermediary. 
• Mercantilism was initiated in the port of Nagasaki.  
• 
  The Japanese were particularly interested in Portuguese guns. 
• Oda Nobunaga rose to power and nearly unified Japan because he extensively used the arquebus.
• In time the Japanese improved the technology, and their guns became superior to imports.
• Up until 1595 when Portugal banned the selling and buying of slaves from the Orient, there was considerable slave trade, particularly women for sexual purposes.

• 
  Formal trade relations with the Dutch began in 1609, for trade with Portugal and Spain was stopped, as they sometimes helped groups rebelling against the Tokugawa shogunate.  There is a lot of Dutch influence in the Nagasaki area.
• Japan trade with the U.S. began in 1854 after Commodore Matthew Perry's success in opening the country to foreigners.

Most people, like me, identify with Japan through samurai films.  They rose as a class in the 1300s until the 1870s.  There are two kinds of ratings, those who most influenced the history of the country, like Shoguns Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Taiko, or Prime Minister, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and true warriors:

• #1  Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645).  The following quote will bring back memories of Toshiro Mifune and other actors:
• While he never held his own lands or served a lord as a formal samurai, as a duelist, none can compare to Miyamoto Musashi (1584?-1645). 
• Brazen and reckless, Musashi won his first duel at the age of 12 or 13, accepting an open challenge from a traveling samurai whom he stunned with a sudden attack with a wooden pole, then beat to death on the ground.  

• 
  In 1612 he fought his most famous duel , which was against Sasaki Kojiro on the tiny island of Funajima, situated in the Kanmon Straits between Japan's main island and Kyushu. Musashi aggravated his opponent by intentionally arriving on the island nearly three hours late. In the course of a fierce but brief duel, he then struck him dead with a wooden sword he'd carved from an oar on his way to the island.  And yes, this was the 1956 Samurai III, Duel at Ganryu Island, where Musashi (Mifune) disposes of Kojiro (Koji Tsurata).
• After the Siege of Osaka, Musashi helped construct Akashi Castle in what's now Hyogo Prefecture, and also assisted in laying out the town of Himeji. He traveled again for a time, offering himself as a sword instructor or vassal to various major figures, including Tokugawa Ieyasu himself (who rejected him), until in 1633 he finally took up residence with the daimyo of Kumamoto Castle, by which time he dueled less and was interested in learning to paint. 
• In 1643 he retired to a cave in western Kumamoto, known as Reigando (霊巌洞), to write The Book of Five Rings. He completed the work in February 1645, then died in the cave around June 13 at the age of 62.
• Undefeated across at least 60 duels, he founded multiple schools of swordsmanship.
• #2 Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), #3 Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598) and #4 Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582).  They all lived alongside each other in time and place.

There were female samurai.

•  There is a book, Samurai Women 1184-1877:  ranked #1 is Tomeo Gozen (1157-1247), known as onna-bugeisha, was true military general.
• A last stand was made by female warriors in 1868.
• 
  There is a rumor that there might have been a female samurai warrior in our family. During my roots search for Kenjiro, my father's father, I asked questions.

For Japan, I start with women samurai.  There is a vague family rumor that one grandmother of my father's father, Kenjiro Takahashi, might have been a female samurai.  Here is a two-part search I made on Hokkaido in 2009:  Part 1 and Part 2.  That led to another roots journey the following year, for it turned out that that Kenjiro's parents had left Akita, and he was born in Otaru.  In Akita I found the gravestone of a kin.  Would like to return someday for a more serious search.

In that above posting, I also included:

Screen Rant uses Rotten Tomatoes to select the top samurai movies, and, of course:

• 100%  Seven Samurai (1954), HBO Max
• 100%  Harakiri (1962), can purchase on Prime Video
• 100%  Sanjuro (1962), can purchase on Prime Video
• 100%  Samurai Rebellion (1967), Criterion Channel
• 100%  Lady Snowblood (1973), HBO Max
• 99%  The Twilight Samurai (2002)
• The list goes on.
• - 

THE SEARCH: FOR KENJIRO'S GRANDMOTHERS (Part 2)

FEMALE SAMURAI

The Japanese term for female samurai is onna-bugeisha.  Usually these women were from the upper class, and were trained to protect the household when the men were away.  However, they also regularly joined their husbands in battle.  Empress Jingu (above) and Tomoe Gozen (right) were two who were particularly famous, the former, who lived around AD 200, before the samurai concept, leading a conquest of Korea (maybe), and the latter, active around 1200 as a true swordswoman and archer in the Kyoto area.  The traditional weapon for women, though, was the naginata (below), a pole with a blade.

There is an alphabetical list of noteworthy female samurai in The Samurai Archives.  However, all of them lived mostly in the Tokyo area into Kamakura and down to Kyoto.  I haven't yet found any female warrior in northern Honshu.  Almost certainly, Kenjiro's grandmothers would have lived in Akita Prefecture.  The added note that one of them might have been something like a Robin Hood adds another degree of impossibility to reality, for most of the famous female warriors were married to or somehow related to shoguns or the very high class.  The added fact that Japan was at peace in the 1800 to 1850 period adds a further element of doubt.  But the search will go on.

-
The Dow Jones Industrials fell 107 to 10,341, while world markets mostly down, with the Japan Nikkei dropping 157 to 9069.  Gold jumped $9/toz to $1256 and crude oil is just under $74/barrel.

-
Tropical Storm Malou at 40 MPH made landfall over Matsue, is close to Fukui and should be over Tokyo by tonight.  Tropical Storm Hermine just made landfall 40 miles south of Brownsville at 60 MPH.  That disturbance south and east of the Big Island is moving west, while a new storm seems to be forming off Africa between Dakar and Cape Verde.

-

[edit

[edit