This season , I watched a movie called ハケンの品格, Haken no Hinkaku.

It tells that a serious issue in the Japanese society , the conflict between informal employee and formal employee and contradictory  between the welfare of employees and the benefit of the company.

 In the movie , the role played by 大春凉子is a woman without smile, experienced , omnipotent. As an contract employee, she is unbelievably hardworking. She never does extra work and never does loaf on the job.

In Japan, the ration of formal employee and informal employee is 12.4%, also , 30% of women are not formal employee.

They do the same job and make same effort, while , they do not receive the same. What is more ,they have to bear the discrimination and exploitation during the work.

This movie depict this society issue in a humorous and gentle way and it induce us to think if we can come up with a solution to balance the welfare of employee and the benefit of the

  “Ran (乱, "chaos" or "revolt") is a 1985 film written and directed by Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. It is a jidaigeki (Japanese period drama) depicting the fall of Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai), an aging Sengoku-era warlord who decides to abdicate as ruler in favor of his three sons. The story is based on legends of the daimyo Mōri Motonari, as well as on the Shakespearean tragedy King Lear.”

        This is the plot of Ran.

       “ According to Stephen Prince, Ran is "a relentless chronicle of base lust for power, betrayal of the father by his sons, and pervasive wars and murders that destroy all the main characters."[2] It is a tale about the downfall of the once-powerful Ichimonji clan after its patriarch Hidetora decides to give control of his kingdom up to his three sons: Taro, Jiro, and Saburo. Taro, the eldest, will receive the prestigious First Castle and become leader of the Ichimonji clan, while Jiro and Saburo will be given the Second and Third Castles. Hidetora will remain the titular leader and retain the title of Great Lord. Jiro and Saburo are to support Taro, and Hidetora illustrates this by using a bundle of arrows.[3] Saburo criticizes the logic of Hidetora's plan. Hidetora achieved power through treachery, he reminds his father, yet he foolishly expects his sons to be loyal to him. Hidetora mistakes these comments for a threat and when his servant Tango comes to Saburo's defense, he banishes both of them.

Following Hidetora's abdication, Taro's wife Lady Kaede begins pushing for Taro to take direct control of the Ichimonji clan, and engineers a rift between Taro and Hidetora. Lady Kaede resents Hidetora for massacring her family in a previous war and forcing her to marry Taro. Matters come to a head when Hidetora kills one of Taro's guards who was threatening his fool Kyoami. When Taro subsequently demands that Hidetora renounce his title of Great Lord, Hidetora storms out of the castle. He then travels to Jiro's castle, only to discover that Jiro is more interested in using Hidetora as a pawn in his own power play. Finally Hidetora journeys to the third castle, which had been abandoned after Saburo's forces followed their lord into exile. They take shelter in the castle, only to be ambushed by the combined forces of Taro and Jiro. In a horrific massacre that is the centerpiece of the film, Hidetora's bodyguards and concubines are slaughtered, the castle is set on fire, and Hidetora is left to commit seppuku (ritual suicide). However, much to his dismay, Hidetora's sword has been broken and he cannot commit seppuku. Instead of killing himself, Hidetora goes mad and escapes from the burning castle. As Taro and Jiro's forces storm the castle, Jiro's general Kurogane has Taro assassinated.

Hidetora is discovered wandering in the wilderness by Tango and Kyoami, who along with Saburo remain the only people still loyal to him. They take refuge in a peasant's home, only to discover that the peasant is a man named Tsurumaru, Lady Sué's brother (and Hidetora's son-in-law), whom Hidetora had ordered blinded years ago. Upon his return from battle, Jiro begins having an affair with Lady Kaede, who quickly becomes the power behind his throne. She demands that Jiro divorce his wife Lady Sué and marry her instead. When he does so, she also demands for good measure that he have Sué killed. Kurogane is given the order, but he publicly disobeys and warns Jiro not to trust his wife. Meanwhile, Hidetora's party hides out in the remains of a castle that Hidetora had destroyed in an earlier war. At one point Tango kills two men from Hidetora's bodyguard who he discovers had betrayed him. Hidetora's madness causes him to have nightmares about all the people he murdered in his quest for power. The madness finally becomes too much for him to bear; eluding his servants, he flees back into the wilderness.

With Hidetora's location a mystery, Saburo's army crosses back into the kingdom to find him. Alarmed at what he suspects is treachery, Jiro hastily mobilizes his army to stop them. The two forces meet on the field of Hachiman. Sensing a major battle, Saburo's new patron, a warlord named Fujimaki, marches to the border. Another rival warlord, Ayabe, also shows up with his own army. After arranging a truce with Jiro, Saburo rides off to find Hidetora. But Jiro orders an attack anyway, and his forces are decimated by arquebus fire from Saburo's army. In the middle of the battle, word reaches Jiro and Kurogane that Ayabe has slipped away with much of his army and is marching on the First Castle. Jiro's army promptly disintegrates and flees back to the castle, where Kurogane beheads Lady Kaede after she admits that she herself had planned for events to transpire this way all along. Jiro, Kurogane, and Jiro's men all die in the battle that follows. Lady Sué is also finally murdered by one of Jiro's men.

In the end, Saburo finally discovers Hidetora, hiding in a cave. The two are reunited and Hidetora comes to his senses. However, Saburo is promptly killed by an assassin that Jiro had sent out earlier. Overcome with grief, Hidetora finally dies, marking the end of the Ichimonji clan. The film ends with a shot of Tsurumaru, blind and alone on top of the ruined castle, the only survivor of the film's events.”

To tell the truth, when I first saw the movie, I was thinking that why the king have a meeting on the grass. The movie seems a little old in costumes and the settings .But when you finishi the whole movie ,you will feel that it is a move thant shot in 1985.It is amazing.

      The director really depicited vividly the figures, one of which is really striking. Lady Kaede is a womam  who push this tragedy for her hostility caused by Hidetora killing her family.

      There is a part of the movie to draw the lady’s cruel and naïve ,an extremely contradictory personality.

        When a fly flies to the lady, she is pretending to cry to induce the king to kill his original wife. She captures the fly and kill it like a child.

      When I see this part, an idea came to me that how unbelievable the movie was shot in the 80s.

    

           
This week I want to talk about history of Japanese films and striking features produced by its traditional culture.
           
            Like  films of most countries in the world ,the film went through the twists and turns.
            In 1896 , the  kinetoscope  invented by the Thomas Edison was introduced into Japan. However ,the first successful film appeared in the 1897.

      Onoe-Matsunosuke ,  a former  kabuki  actor ,became the first cinema star in Japan by starring the movie  Honnōji gassen (本能寺合戦)

            It sounds interesting now that the movie was made by narrator standing beside the screen describing the plot and lines with an kabuki accent.   The movie at that time has no sounds and no consistency, just like several pictures in a big screen .One thing  paid attention to is that the actor and narrator was both related to the traditional opera kabuki.
            In 1918,a movement called Pure Cinema Movement was popular in Tokyo. This movement encouraged the film to be shot in the natural world and promoted the female actress and the abolishing of narrator.

        In  September 1 ,1923, the big earthquake in Tokyo, adding the  economic depression, , panicked and  despaired the public. Lots of films represented the despair, hopelessness and  pessimism. 
        This change in the content of film reminds me of  a same kind of cinema , waiting for godot , a similar film to vent the emotion of human being.  Sometimes ,the content of animal can represent the status ,feelings and  activities of the public,  like panic, despair  and optimism. However ,today’s film often represents violence , pornography and desire.  Are  these all things in our mind. Whether our minds get more complicated or more easy  with the development of technology and media culture.?
        I do not know , but I do not want the film turns to be a tool just to make people laugh or scared,  only to produce feeling, not the thinking.

To talk about the development of mass media in Asia, we  ought to start with learning about the traditional opera of the countries.

Firstly ,Japan has three main traditional opera in the history , Noh drama, Kabuki and  Bunraku .Enjoying  Japanese movie ,you will find the trace of them everywhere ,the costume ,the tone ,the background and the lyrics

Performers must wear masks in the Noh drama, which is the symbol

 of this drama. It usually  tells supernatural story ,like ghost,

monster and spirit.

Kabuki is a kind of dance performation , which is all maled. The element of this kind performation is stage, dance  and make-up .

Bunraku is presented by controling the puppets.

Nowadys ,with innovation and reformation  in the traditional operas , more and more Japanese elements  are applied into the filming .For instance, my favorite Kyōgen master野村万斋  also act the leading role in the film ,阴阳师.  玩偶，座头市，is the movies that thoroughly full of tranditional elements .Influenced  by the traditional culture, japanese movies are more delicate, undemonstrative and quiet.

about research blog

I just decide to write a research blog about the development and history about cinema and TV program. I am more interested on it , learning about the history abot cinema, figuring out how the first sound sent to ears, how the first image appearing on eyes and how they were combined.

As for the TV program ,I want to write something about Asian’s mass media,  because I have little idea about American media.

I want to do some research about Japanese adopting  traditional ghost culture into cartoon and the emerging and downfall of Hong Kong ‘s culture on the  screens .

Bollywood also attracts  me a lot.

In a world ,I want to talk a lot  of things  on this aspect

2010/9/19

It is still a challenge for me to believe that I am now in the USA, not china,a country on the another side of the globe.At first ,I believed that I can accommodate to a new environment well,but it turned to be bad.
Firstly,of cause ,the biggest problem is language. NO matter how well Idid in China,I am not able to be compared with the native speakers .Different name ,different pronunciation and horrible oral language almost drive me crazy.
Secondly, to tell the truth ,food here smells nice but tastes awful.Hambergers,sandwiches,salads and pasta are just all.However I think
cookies here is delicious.
Whereas something in the USA is perfect.Beautiful houses ,nice people ,and fantastic public sevices.
I think what I come into is cultural shock ,the collisions of different cultures. I hope that I can get used to the environment here.