My review was written in June 1990 after a screening at Japan House in Manhattan.
"Zipang" is a tongue-in-cheek samurai fantasy whose best U. S. chances would come in a dubbed version for action audiences.
Director Kaizo Hayashi scored with art film enthusiasts via his "To Sleep so as to Dream" (1986), followed by "Circus Boys", but this time has adopted too cutesy an approach to appeal to serious-minded Japanese film buffs. It's analogous to Joseph Losey's comic strip film "Modesty Blaise" as applied to the revered tradition of period samurai epics.
Already trimmed from its Japanese release version of 118 minutes to a better paced 100-minute cut for international distribution, pic is ripe for dubbing in its unusual use of flippant English subtitles. Characters are translated with vulgarisms and anachronistic hip expressions that lampoon the action.
Film proper includes anachronisms as well: infrared binoculars, morar shells and even a slide projector figure into the action set several centuries ago as a shogun seeks a legendary island kingdom of gold known as "Zipang" (which turns out to be Japan after all).
Hokey group of characters makes Kenneth Robeson's "Doc Savage" troupe look serious by comparison. Handsome swordsman Masahiro Takashima is painfully hip in his styling, with an okay gag (suitable for ripoff by "Saturday Night Live" or Mel Brooks) of him using numbered swords like golf clubs. In battle he calls out to his squire (or caddie) for "number 7" and the appropriate club is soon skewering hundreds of baddies one by one.
This comical mayhem creates an anticlimax early in the film in a bravura single-take overhead shot of him decimating over 50 warriors merely to cross a bridge.
Overload of subplots feature a shogun questing not only for gold but the meaning of love, a ridiculously modern girl (replete with Louise Brooks hairdo) named Yuri the Pistol who sparfs withbutsoon becomes enamored of Takahima, a ghostly ancient warrior helped by the heroes to finally unite wih his lost love, a queen, and a silly papier-mache type baby elephant.
The specter of Steven Spielberg hangs heavily over the proceedings, ranging from a "Raiders of the Lost Ark" sequence in a caver to a final gag lameduckedly spoofing the music and sharkfin image of "Jaws"
En route Hayashi provides entertainment via speeded up camera action, nimble ninja cavortings (led by the comical Yukio Yamato) and some interesting special effects. The musical score, which owes more to Ennio Morricone than traditional Japanese samurai pics, is sprightly and effective.
Acting is over the top; and won't be seriously impeded by dubbing, especially the unconvincingly sentimental "timeless" love story.
Art director Takeo Kimura, in whose honor Japan Society hosted this U. S. premiere in Gotham., has used Aztec and Incan Monuments as his design inspiration to impressive effect.
