Zipang

I'm hurt. Five out of ten? This is a wonderful film. It starts out in an updated idiom of Sonny Chiba's best Samurai fantasies and then progressively gets more and more eccentric and mythic. It's stylishly violent in places, comical, inventive, engaging and profound. It's genuinely a film to be discovered by a discerning few. Such a film could never be made in the West because the West no longer draws on its own legends and lore and has forfeited its own Romantic visions.

Set in a fantasy futuristic medieval Japan, 'Zipang' is a deliciously quirky action movie following the wacky adventures of outlaw Jigoku-goraku-Maru as he is pursued by a band of bounty hunters led by Teppo Oyuri otherwise known as Pistol Lily. During their escapades they meet a half naked guy and decide to help him recover the legendary sword thought to be the key to 'Zipang' – the city of gold where his lover is held hostage by the evil king.

The characters are interesting, requiring no real development due to their comic book style appeal. Director Kaizo Hayashi does a great job paying a tongue-in-cheek tribute to an era of classic martial arts characters including a not-so-blind samurai and a ninja displaying amazingly ability. The style over substance element means the film does slow down at points and the ridiculous plot doesn't give the viewer enough to cling on to. But who cares? The action scenes are excellent and the humour is great, remaining buoyant even when the plot spirals into absurdity.

ZIPANG (1990) is a rather strained Japanese costume fantasy about a group of characters seeking a magical golden sword on a journey that takes them to Zipang, a mythical sky kingdom. The main character is Jigoku, a wanted criminal traveling with a band of outlaws. His chief rival is Yuri `the gun,' a female bounty hunter who carries a two-shot pistol. The two eventually fall in love. (The lead actors are Masahiro Takashima and Narumi Yasuda.)

They meet a seemingly primitive man in loin cloth, dubbed `the Prophet,' who originally came from Zipang and was trapped on earth many long years earlier. Up in Zipang is a Princess in white trapped in a white stone hut waiting to be rescued by the Prophet. Jigoku and Yuri find that their destiny is to help the two reunite. But they first must confront an evil ninja with some high-tech weapons.

Director Kaizo Hayashi mixes swordplay, historical drama, slapstick, romantic comedy, fantasy and science fiction, but the film never finds the right tone nor do the story elements ever quite gel. An early battle between Jigoku and the bounty hunters is clearly a parody as Jigoku fights such famous Japanese swordsmen as Zatoichi and Tange Sazen and a famous French swordsman, Cyrano de Bergerac! The whole story of the Princess and the Prophet and the island of Zipang in the sky is not even told until more than half-way into the two-hour film, so for the first half we have no idea where the story's going.

The high technology used in some scenes is amusingly far-fetched. The ninja villain has a pair of binoculars with a zoom lens that takes pictures on a little metal chip that is then transported via guided flying throwing star to the castle of the Ninja's lord who then projects the photos from the chip with some kind of slide projector apparatus. Fans of gimmicky Japanese fantasy will be interested but others may find the movie's charms somewhat fleeting.

Jigoku-goraku-Maru (JGM or roughly translated as "Hellraiser") is a swordsman for hire, traveling with his band of mercenaries in feudal Japan. JGM is constantly being pursued by innumerable bounty hunters and other fortune seekers trying to collect the bounty on his head. One of those hunters is the beautiful Teppo Oyuri (aka Pistol Lily) who is an expert in Western Firearms and a deadly markswoman. During their travels, JGM and his mates happen across a map that supposedly leads them to a fortune in gold. What they find instead is a Golden Sword with incredible powers, that is the key to finding the legendary City of Gold, Zipang (Portuguese for Japan). Unfortunately for him, this unleases a string of events which culminate with JGM and company traveling to the very halls of Zipang to do battle with its Warlord King and his "Haniwa" henchmen.

Zipangu is surprisingly similar in style to the recent Wild Wild West (1999) movie and Original CBS TV Series. While predating the Wild Wild West movie by nine years, Zipangu could easily be called a Japanese "Wild Wild West" type of saga. Like WWW's James West, JGM is a feudal samurai who is decidedly and strangely modern. JGM's "Neo-Samurai" attire fuses Western influences (leather) with Japanese (silk). He carries a cache of wicked swords and stores them much like a golfer his golfing clubs. In a hilarious and elaborate opening sequence, JKG goes through his arsenal of swords one right after another, dependant on the opponent his is facing. Even his vernacular is a wierd mixture of modern slang and feudal speak.

Director Hayashi has a flair for parody as he literally borrows and lampoons all the various Samurai Movie conventions. One delightful highlight includes JKG's encounter with a all too familiar Blind Masseur (Zatoichi?) who turns out to be able to see after all. The Ninja (Shinobi-Nin) opponents whom JKG encounters throughout the film are also a joy to watch as they incorporate and wield various "modern" type of devices and gadgets that would make Wild Wild West's Artemus Gordon green with envy.

While the pacing is a bit slow at times and the story is an exercise in style rather than substance, the movie as a whole is quite enjoyable and a feast for the eyes. Not for the overly serious and a must for Japanese cinema fans.

Like a lot of Japanese films I've been seeing of late, ZIPANG is set in ancient Japan, but seems to take what can only be called a "groovy" perspective on the whole thing. ZIPANG may look like a period film, but its many clever gadgets and other modern devices that appear certainly says otherwise.

The movie itself has a convoluted plot that's better left to the viewer to discover. Recapping the story in a few sentences seems impossible, not because it's so complex, but because it's so silly and pointless.

Still, ZIPANG is a good way to past the time. It's certainly no better than say RED SHADOW.

5 out of 10

(go to www.nixflix.com for a more detailed review of this movie and reviews of other foreign films)