Tag: samurai

A Hero Dies 50,000 Deaths!

In chanbara, Japanese sword-fighting movies, actor Seizo Fukumoto is a master of the art of dying.  Anthony Kuhn interviews him about his life dying on screen. “In a trademark move, Fukumoto is dealt a fatal blow, then bends over backward, seemingly suspended in midair for a moment of […]

Taira no Kiyomori

Kenichi Matsuyama, who played L in Death Note, Masura Kato in Gantz: Light in the Dark and who Midnight Madness fans might remember as  Negishi/Johannes Krauser  from Detroit Metal City, is playing the 12th Century/Heian Era, Taira no Kiyomori, in an eponymous 50 episode NHK television series. The […]

Slashing Cinema

Wendell Jamieson writes about Japanese sword fight films for The New York Times: “I recently asked my sensei, then and now, Noboru Kataoka — himself an actor who goes as Ken Kensai — to name the greatest sword fight film of them all, and he answered, The Sword […]