The Chinese equivalent of the detective tale, the gong an, predates Poe/Mauppasant by centuries. In the introducion to Dee Gong An, the translator attempts to explicate some of the story elements that may seem surprising to non-Chinese readers, such as the use of dreams and ghosts in solving the mysteries. We can see this last element in the Japanese mystery tale Rashomon.
It is true that Kurosawa's film offers three distinct filmic views - the rainy gate, the court/yard with wall at beheading level, and the deadly, dappled woods - but there are four, not three, versions of the rape/murder tale: the 'witness's, the bandit's, the raped woman's, and the murdered samurai's. This last is the key, as channeled through a woman shaman. The samurai in life was calm whereas his ghost's account is emotional; but is this the woman shaman's influence, the ghostly realm's, or the samurai's true nature as undistorted by the others' accounts?
One can see in Kurosawa's samurai films an exploration of the five Buddhist lay ethics the pancasila: against taking life in Yojimbo and against intoxicants in the follow-up Sanjuro, against sexual immorality in Seven Samurai, against taking what is not given in Hidden Fortress (which influenced Star Wars), and against untruth in Rashomon.
Kurosawa adapted a story of Uchido in his last film Madadayo, as touching an hommage to age as is his masterpiece Ikiru and a nice counterpoint to that other Japanese master filmmaker Ozu's masterpiece Tokyo Story.
It is true that Kurosawa's film offers three distinct filmic views - the rainy gate, the court/yard with wall at beheading level, and the deadly, dappled woods - but there are four, not three, versions of the rape/murder tale: the 'witness's, the bandit's, the raped woman's, and the murdered samurai's. This last is the key, as channeled through a woman shaman. The samurai in life was calm whereas his ghost's account is emotional; but is this the woman shaman's influence, the ghostly realm's, or the samurai's true nature as undistorted by the others' accounts?
One can see in Kurosawa's samurai films an exploration of the five Buddhist lay ethics the pancasila: against taking life in Yojimbo and against intoxicants in the follow-up Sanjuro, against sexual immorality in Seven Samurai, against taking what is not given in Hidden Fortress (which influenced Star Wars), and against untruth in Rashomon.
Kurosawa adapted a story of Uchido in his last film Madadayo, as touching an hommage to age as is his masterpiece Ikiru and a nice counterpoint to that other Japanese master filmmaker Ozu's masterpiece Tokyo Story.
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