I waited years for an opportunity to see this films. Any aficionado of Japanese cinema probably would, as the Toho mega-production stars half of Japan's greatest actors and actresses. So when the opportunity finally came, I really wanted to like this film. I really wanted to get sucked into its world. After watching the film, which is three hours in duration, I was left perplexed. Not only, because so much of the plot-line is so difficult to comprehend, but because so much money had been invested to a production, to which so little thought had been given.
The film is called "Nippon tanjo". This literally means "The birth of Japan", though the film has been distributed to west as "The Three Treasures". The distributed copy cut the running time to two hours, and whereas usually that qualifies as butchery of a film, "Nippon tanjo" could actually benefit from such maneuvering, as cutting down the strangest bits, and the long gaps where nothing of substance occurs, would make the film much more watchable.
Anyways. This film is based on the legends of "Kojiki" and "Nihon shoki", which are the two oldest texts from Japan. They relate how the world, the Japanese archipelago, the imperial line of Japan and the Shinto faith were born. This film has been called the Japanese equivalent to Cecil B. DeMille's biblical spectacles, and in some ways it's an accurate way to frame it. The film starts with the gods creating the earth, and then turns into the story of the hero protagonist, played by Mifune Toshiro. He is a prince, who is accused of a crime he didn't do, so he has to go on a journey, to prove that he is a good person, and also to kill monsters. Every now and then we get scenes with the gods, confusing the narrative exponentially.
I personally like the romanticized notions of nations filming their historical origins, even if they take artistic liberties with these narratives. I think a narrative, where Mifune as a prince kills monsters could potentially be very watchable. Yet I did not find "Nippon tanjo" to be watchable. The film has a wonderful cast, everybody from Tanaka Kinuyo to Nakamura Ganjiro, and from Hara Setsuko to Shimura Takashi. It is directed by the experienced Inagaki Hiroshi. But the screenplay, by two talented writers Kikushima Ryûzô and Yasumi Toshio, fails to resonate in almost every way. None of the actors receive a character to which they can breath life into. These are all historical ideals, and not relatable three-dimensional personas. The film is superficial even more than DeMille's biblical works. I felt much of the cast, especially Hara Setsuko in one of her weirder turns, is absolutely wasted on this project.
The film also refuses to get going. As a narrative, it is stale and uninteresting. It is also confusing, even if one is somewhat aware of the legends to which it is based on. The campy aesthetics used in the scenes among the gods reminded me of 1960's "Star Trek". They are really weird for weird sake, at least visually. And the scenes in the film go on forever. Also, after so much anticipation, the monsters aren't that well produced either, and the multi-headed sea snake looked kind of lame.
I don't know what to really praise in this production. I like the idea of this film, I just thoroughly did not care for the execution of the idea.
