MIYAMOTO MUSASHI: UNRIVALLED SWORDSMAN AND SPIRITUAL SEEKER BETWEEN FACT AND FICTION A Mamoru Oshii & Production I.G Collaborative Project 72 mins / Release: June 13, 2009 / Animation: Production I.G OVERVIEW The creative team of Ghost in the Shell, Innocence, The Sky Crawlers and Kill Bill: Vol. 1 resurrects the legendary swordsman, Miyamoto Musashi on the big screen! Maverick filmmaker Mamoru Oshii is the mastermind behind the original concept for this project, in collaboration with top-notch studio Production I.G - the team that brought you cutting edge anime such as Patlabor: The Movie 2 (1993), Ghost in the Shell (1995), Innocence (2004) and The Sky Crawlers (2008). SYNOPSIS Miyamoto Musashi (c. 1584-1645) was an unrivalled swordsman in the days when internal wars in Japan had virtually ended. Nevertheless, he wrote a master treatise on military strategy, The Book of Five Rings and sought the way to enlighten his spirit and cultivate his mind. But could his image have been fabricated by the generations that followed…? PRODUCTION NOTES Mamoru Oshii takes on an unusual portrayal of this legendary and aloof warrior, between spectacular duels and a tragic life in pursuit of greatness. With The Book of Five Rings as his guide, Oshii unsheathes his unique vision of this greatest swordsman in Japanese history, completely different from the widely known portrayals of this character. Oshii’s long-time collaborator, Mizuho Nishikubo directs the film, cleverly combining 2D and 3DCGI animation and live action footage with different narrative and visual styles, from swordplay classics to documentary language. Nishikubo has also devoted specific attention to the music score, in a mesmerizing east-meets-west fusion of sounds. For the battle scenes, traditional narrative singing called rokyoku was used. Director Nishikubo commissioned the rokyoku parts to a professional performer, Takeharu Kunimoto, who added several western instruments to the traditional shamisen sound. Kazuto Nakazawa, director of the mind-blowing animation segment in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) and creator of innovative characters as seen in Samurai Champloo (2004), has contributed the character designs for Musashi. The animation is supervised by Kazuchika Kise, the chief animator in Ghost in the Shell, Innocence and Blood: The Last Vampire. MAIN STAFF Original Concept / Screenplay: Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, The Sky Crawlers) Director: Mizuho Nishikubo (Innocence, The Sky Crawlers, Legend of Heavenly Sphere Shurato, Otogi Zoshi ) Character Design: Kazuto Nakazawa (Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Samurai Champloo, Asience: Hairy Tale) Animation Director: Kazuchika Kise (Ghost in the Shell, Blood: The Last Vampire) Art Director: Shuichi Hirata (Innocence, xxxHOLiC - A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Asience: Hairy Tale) CG Animation: Makoto Endo (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Le Chevalier D’Eon) © 2009 Production I.G / Musashi Production Committee ABOUT THE DIRECTOR: MIZUHO NISHIKUBO Nishikubo was born on January 15, 1953. A longtime and most trusted collaborator of Mamoru Oshii, he has participated as sequence director (but under his real name of Toshihiko Nishikubo) in all Oshii’s works since Patlabor 2: The Movie (1993), namely Ghost in the Shell, Cannes Palme d’Or-nominated Innocence and Golden Lion-nominated The Sky Crawlers. It is said that Oshii’s movies would not look the same without his contribution. He uses his alias Mizuho Nishikubo when he directs. After graduating from Waseda University, Nishikubo began his career at Tatsunoko Production and later became a protégé of Osamu Dezaki, one of Japan’s most respected animation directors. His collaborations with Dezaki include TV series Lady Oscar (1979) and Ashita no Jo 2 aka The Champion (1980). Nishikubo made his directorial debut in 1983 with Mitsuru Adachi’s romantic comedy Miyuki (1983, TV series). Other credits include Red Photon Zillion, (1987, TV series) Legend of Heavenly Sphere Shurato, (1989, TV series), Video Girl Ai (1992, OVA) Otogi Zoshi (2004, TV series) and Atagoal: Cat’s Magical Forest (2006, movie). He also directed the music clip Tsepi i kol’tsa / Chains & Rings (2003) for the hugely popular Russian rock star Linda. COMMENT The starting point was this idea of making an animated movie in documentary style, and we tried to answer to a very basic question: why did Miyamoto Musashi never mention the duel with Sasaki Kojiro, otherwise the most renowned episode of his life in popular imagery? Mamoru Oshii's script covered an amazingly wide range of topics, from ancient Persia to Han China to the evolution of knights in Europe, and reached as far as the Russo-Japanese War and the appearance of tanks on the Western Front during WWI, of course not without his sarcastic commentary on how Japanese tend to identify modernization with the removal of their cultural heritage. So my challenge was about how to make this profoundly erudite excursus on Musashi entertaining. This movie could be described as a combination of Oshii's philosophical insight and social criticism, and cool samurai action, all arranged in documentary style. I'm sure this is something no-one has ever tried or seen before, so I hope you'll enjoy it. ABOUT THE SCRIPTWRITER: MAMORU OSHII Born in Tokyo on August 8, 1951, Mamoru Oshii is considered as one of the most remarkable personalities in modern Japanese filmmaking. He introduced introspective philosophical speculation into the world of animation, influencing at the same time movie creators all around the globe with his visionary style. Oshii joined the animation industry in 1977. His main works are Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer (1984), Patlabor: the Movie (1989), the epoch-making Ghost in the Shell (1995, N. 1 in Billboard Top Video Sales Chart), Innocence (2004, first Japanese animated feature film ever nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Festival de Cannes) and Tachigui: The Amazing Lives of the Fast Food Grifters (2006, selected for the 63rd Venice Film Festival). He has also directed a number of live-action features, including Avalon (2001). His latest movie, The Sky Crawlers, was nominated for the Golden Lion at the 65th Venice Film Festival, screened at the 33rd Toronto International Film Festival and was greeted with three awards at Sitges 2008 (Critic Award, Best Music Award, Young Jury Award). COMMENT I have been interested in Musashi for a while. Nobody is less known than a famous man. He's a hugely popular figure, everybody knows him, even outside of Japan. But I'd rather say, people believe they know about him. In fact, most of what people "know" about Musashi comes from novels and movies. Musashi’s image has been interpreted, modified and fabricated in different ways and for different purposes during three centuries. He was a multi-talented man who lived in a very particular period. But Japanese people tend to admire those who achieve perfection in one craft or discipline, and are strangely indifferent if not suspicious toward universal men. That’s why I wanted to portray a Japanese who was very different from contemporary Japanese people. A man whose effectiveness is not confined to a specific country or era. 62nd Film Festival Locarno Official Selection: Filmmkers of the Present ”We are really delighted to be showing Musashi at Locarno, The film's aesthetic references the best of animation cinema, but also the great masterpieces of Japanese film history. In addition to the combination of different styles and genres it ★ INT’L SALES / PUBLICITY ★ creates a unique, post-modern universe that fits Production I.G / Francesco Prandoni perfectly with the Festival's programming objective, [email protected] which is to remain constantly on the alert for new mobile: +81-80-3361-4641 developments in film language. ” Frédéric Maire, Artistic Director, Film Festival Locarno Established by Mitsuhisa Ishikawa in 1987, Production I.G is one of the world's leading animation studios. With its cutting-edge works, such as Ghost in the Shell (1995), Jin-Roh (2000), Blood: The Last Vampire (2000), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (animation segment, 2003), Innocence (2004) and The Sky Crawlers (2008), I.G has gained high reputation around the globe, inspiring Hollywood creators such as James Cameron, Quentin Tarantino and the Wachowski brothers. Official Website: http://www.production-ig.com Contact: [email protected] © 2009 Production I.G / Musashi Production Committee MIYAMOTO MUSASHI: UNRIVALLED SWORDSMAN AND SPIRITUAL SEEKER BETWEEN FACT AND FICTION MUSASHI Miyamoto Musashi (circa 1584-1645) was a Japanese swordsman who became renowned through stories of his distinctive style and excellent swordsmanship in numerous duels. He is particular famous in the Western world as the author of The Book of Five Rings, a book on strategy, tactics, and philosophy that is still studied today. He is also an iconic presence in Japanese culture. He was the solitary warrior that never lost a duel. The man who somehow forged the idea of bushido, or way of the warrior, as a balance of spirituality and fighting techniques. His name was given to the Yamato twin battleship that was the pride of the Japanese Imperial Navy during WWII. However, many details of Musashi`s life are still debated, starting from his actual birth date. The existing corpus of chronicles, hagiographic material and pure legends is countless as the fictional works that depict his figure, contributing the creation of a popular image that is very likely to be rather distant from truth. As a matter of fact, Musashi's only writings are related to strategy and sword technique, and offer very few details on his life. EARLY YEARS In The Book of Five Rings, Musashi writes: “I have trained in the way of strategy since my youth, and at the age of thirteen I fought a duel for the first time. My opponent was called Arima Kihei, a sword adept of the Shinto ryu, and I defeated him.” In 1599, when he was 15 or 16, he left his village, and since then he spent his time traveling and engaging in duels.