Few genres associated closely with a nation have lasted as long as the samurai has for Japan, most follow the path of the Western in that they had a golden era with occasional post-boom pockets. The latest film to be released on Third Window Films, Uzumasa Limelight, concerns itself with the fading embers of the samurai picture. Ken Ochiai’s film could only be made at this point in history with one leading man. Seizo Fukumoto is a ‘Kirare Yaku’ who has over 50,000 on-screen deaths and he is starring in his first-ever lead role at the age of 70.
In the West, Fukumoto would be classed as either an extra or a stuntman, whereas in Japan he is both and neither – he is an actor who specialises in swordplay and dying. Knowing how to engage in Kenjutsu and die is acting. Fukumoto becomes Kamiyama, a ‘Kirare Yaku’ on a popular 40-year-old TV Samurai serial, as the film starts the show is cancelled leaving the old hands who elevated dying to an art form at a loss and too old to keep up with a youth-obsessed popular culture. Forced into a park show in Kyoto – Japan’s Hollywood – Kamiyama takes a young actress under his wing, passing his traditions onto the next generation.
Fukumoto more than deserved his best actor award at 2014’s Fantasia Film Festival, he is Uzumasa Limelight. The veteran says little, he is a man of commanding physicality. Throughout we observe him practising his stance with his fellow actors, training his protégé (Satsuki (Chihiro Yamamoto)) or plying his trade, wherever and whenever he puts his everything into every slice of his sword. Fukumoto is magnetic. Those few words he does utter are deliberate like every slice and just as supreme in confidence, there is a scene where his attempts at a new line of acting go awry and just by walking he puts the fear of god into a director. This magnanimous aura has been cultivated over a career that dates back as far as 1973’s Battles without Honour and Humanity.
a humble peek behind the velvet rope and insightful satire all packaged in a humble drama about an old man losing his world
USUMASA LIMELIGHT
Ken Ochiai’s film is at its best when it’s concerned with the end of samurai, pointing his finger at the world that has rendered it redundant. Through Hiroyuki Ono’s script, Ochiai talks of the infantilising of Japanese culture with the rise of nonsensical police procedurals and the casting of asinine pop stars in lead roles. The cheapening of historic figures like Oda Nobunaga with computer-animated swords and ‘anime hair’ is one of his most fruitful lines of satire.
Films about films are one of the great joys and for anyone interested in samurai cinema or the jidaigeki, Ochiai’s film is of great interest. Looking behind the curtain, observing how these films were made is mesmerizing but just like the magic circle expelling those who share the secrets of their trade sometimes it’s best not to know how some things are done. Credit where credit is due, neither Ochiai nor Ono take their insight too far. With both sides considered there is nothing here that will ruin the genre for you but there is still an insight that will intrigue fans.
Unfortunately, there is a very distinct line between the great and the dissatisfying, and that falls in the final act. Even if the characterisation does become fully rounded as a result of the climactic shoot, it utterly undermines the film for a cheap – albeit beautifully shot – over-sentimental, melodrama blowout. It doesn’t derail the film and there is a consolation of a stunning final image, there are just wiser ways to end such a wistful film. A true one of a kind, Ken Ochiai’s Uzumasa Limelight is a humble peek behind the velvet rope and insightful satire all packaged in a humble drama about an old man losing his world.
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