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is a genre
Genre

A genre is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other Art#Art forms or utterance....
 of film
Film

Film encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the film industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects....
, television
Television

Television is a widely used telecommunication mass-media for transmitting and receiving moving , either monochrome or color, usually accompanied by sound....
, and theatre
Theatre

Theatre is the branch of the performing arts defined by Bernard Beckerman as what "occurs when one or more actor, isolated in time and/or Theater , present themselves to Audience." By this broad definition, theatre has existed since the dawn of man, as a result of human tendency for story telling....
 in Japan
Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
. The name means "period drama", and the period is usually the Edo period
Edo period

The , or , is a division of History of Japan running from 1603 to 1868. The period marks the governance of the Edo or Tokugawa shogunate, which was officially established in 1603 by the first Edo shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu....
 of Japanese history
History of Japan

The written history of Japan begins with brief references of Twenty-Four Histories, a collection of Chinese historical texts, in the 1st century AD....
, from 1603 to 1868. Some, however, are set much earlier — Portrait of Hell
Portrait of Hell

is a Cinema of Japan jidaigeki film directed by Shiro Toyoda and starring Tatsuya Nakadai and Kinnosuke Yorozuya. It is based on the 1918 short story Hell Screen by Ryunosuke Akutagawa....
, for example, is set during the late Heian period
Heian period

The is the last division of classical History of Japan, running from 794 to 1185. It is the period in Japanese history when Confucianism and other Chinese culture were at their height....
 — and the early Meiji era is also a popular setting. Jidaigeki show the lives of the samurai
Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of Pre-industrial society Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character ? was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau....
, farmers, craftsmen, and merchants of this time. Jidaigeki films are sometimes referred to as chambara movies, a word meaning "sword fight", though chambara is really a sub group.






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is a genre
Genre

A genre is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other Art#Art forms or utterance....
 of film
Film

Film encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the film industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects....
, television
Television

Television is a widely used telecommunication mass-media for transmitting and receiving moving , either monochrome or color, usually accompanied by sound....
, and theatre
Theatre

Theatre is the branch of the performing arts defined by Bernard Beckerman as what "occurs when one or more actor, isolated in time and/or Theater , present themselves to Audience." By this broad definition, theatre has existed since the dawn of man, as a result of human tendency for story telling....
 in Japan
Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
. The name means "period drama", and the period is usually the Edo period
Edo period

The , or , is a division of History of Japan running from 1603 to 1868. The period marks the governance of the Edo or Tokugawa shogunate, which was officially established in 1603 by the first Edo shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu....
 of Japanese history
History of Japan

The written history of Japan begins with brief references of Twenty-Four Histories, a collection of Chinese historical texts, in the 1st century AD....
, from 1603 to 1868. Some, however, are set much earlier — Portrait of Hell
Portrait of Hell

is a Cinema of Japan jidaigeki film directed by Shiro Toyoda and starring Tatsuya Nakadai and Kinnosuke Yorozuya. It is based on the 1918 short story Hell Screen by Ryunosuke Akutagawa....
, for example, is set during the late Heian period
Heian period

The is the last division of classical History of Japan, running from 794 to 1185. It is the period in Japanese history when Confucianism and other Chinese culture were at their height....
 — and the early Meiji era is also a popular setting. Jidaigeki show the lives of the samurai
Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of Pre-industrial society Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character ? was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau....
, farmers, craftsmen, and merchants of this time. Jidaigeki films are sometimes referred to as chambara movies, a word meaning "sword fight", though chambara is really a sub group. They have a set of dramatic conventions including the use of makeup, language, catchphrases, and plotlines.

Types of jidaigeki

Mitokomonsatomikotaro
Many jidaigeki take place in Edo
Edo

, literally: Headlands and bays-door, "estuary", ), also Romanization of Japanese as Yedo or Yeddo, is the Geographical renaming of the Capital of Japan Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868....
, the military capital. Others show the adventures of people wandering from place to place. The long-running television series Zenigata Heiji
Zenigata Heiji

Zenigata Heiji is the hero of a series of Japanese novels, films and TV programmes set in the Edo period of Japanese history. He is a policeman who catches criminals by throwing coins, the zeni of the title, thus Zenigata Heiji....
 and Abarenbo Shogun
Abarenbo Shogun

is a Japanese television program on the TV Asahi network. Set in the eighteenth century, it showed fictitious events in the life of Tokugawa Yoshimune, the eighth Tokugawa clan shogun....
 typify the Edo jidaigeki. Mito Komon
Mito Komon

is a Japan jidaigeki or period drama that has been on prime-time television since 1969. The title character is the historic Tokugawa Mitsukuni, former vice-shogun and retired daimyo of the Mito, Ibaraki Han ....
, the fictitious story of the travels of the historical daimyo
Daimyo

The were powerful territorial lords who ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. The term derives from a shortening of the title , which literally means "great named land" and originally simply referred to the owner of a large estate....
 Tokugawa Mitsukuni
Tokugawa Mitsukuni

was a prominent daimyo who was known for his influence in the politics of the early Edo period. He was the third son of Tokugawa Yorifusa and succeeded him, becoming the second daimyo of the Mito domain....
, and the Zatoichi
Zatoichi

is a fictional character featured in one of Japan's longest running series of films and a television series set in the Edo period. The character, a blind masseur and swordmaster, was created by novelist ....
 movies and television series, exemplify the travelling style.

Another way to categorize jidaigeki is according to the social status of the principal characters. The title character of Abarenbo Shogun is Tokugawa Yoshimune
Tokugawa Yoshimune

was the eighth shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, ruling from 1716 until his abdication in 1745. He was the son of Tokugawa Mitsusada, the grandson of Tokugawa Yorinobu, and the great-grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu....
, the eighth Tokugawa
Tokugawa shogunate

The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the , and the , was a feudalism regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family....
 shogun
Shogun

is a military rank and historical title for Hereditary Commanders in Chief of the Armed Forces of Japan. The Japanese word for "general", it is made up of two kanji characters: sho, meaning "commander", "general", or "admiral", and gun meaning military troops or warriors....
. The head of the samurai class, Yoshimune assumes the disguise of a low-ranking hatamoto
Hatamoto

A was a samurai in the direct service of the Tokugawa shogunate of feudal Japan. While all three of the shogunates in History of Japan had official retainers, in the two preceding ones, they were referred to as gokenin. However, in the Edo period, hatamoto were the upper vassals of the Tokugawa house, and the gokenin were the lower va...
, a samurai in the service of the shogun. Similarly, Mito Komon is the retired vice-shogun, masquerading as a merchant. In contrast, the coin-throwing Heiji of Zenigata Heiji is a commoner
Commoner

In British law, a commoner is someone who is neither the British monarchy nor a peerage. Therefore, any member of the British Royal Family who is not a peer, such as Prince William of Wales or Anne, Princess Royal, is a commoner, as is any member of a peer's family, including someone who holds only a courtesy title, such as the Earl of Arund...
, working for the police, while Ichi (the title character of Zatoichi
Zatoichi

is a fictional character featured in one of Japan's longest running series of films and a television series set in the Edo period. The character, a blind masseur and swordmaster, was created by novelist ....
), a masseur, is an outcast. Gokenin Zankuro is a samurai, but due to his low rank and income, he has to work extra jobs that higher-ranking samurai were unaccustomed to doing.

Whether the lead role is samurai or commoner, jidaigeki usually reach a climax in an immense sword fight just before the end. The title character of a series always wins, whether using a sword or a jitte
Jitte (weapon)

The , literally meaning "ten-hand" , is a specialized weapon which was used by law enforcement officers during Edo period Japan. Nowadays, the jutte is the subject of the Japanese martial art of juttejutsu....
 (the device police used to trap, and sometimes to bend or break, an opponent's sword).

Sengoku-jidai

Sengoku-jidai (Warring States
Sengoku period

The was a time of social upheaval, political intrigue, and nearly constant military conflict in Japan that lasted roughly from the middle of the 15th century to the beginning of the 17th century....
 era setting) is a Japan
Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
ese genre
Genre

A genre is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other Art#Art forms or utterance....
 that has been used as the setting for novel
Novel

File:2009 stapelweise Neuerscheinungen im Buchladen.JPGA novel is today a long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern Romance and in the tradition of the novella....
s, film
Film

Film encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the film industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects....
s, video games, and even anime
Anime

is animation in Japan and considered to be "Japanese animation" in the rest of the world. Anime dates from about 1917.Anime, in addition to manga , is extremely popular in Japan and well known throughout the world....
 and manga
Manga

, , are comics and print cartoons , in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 20th century. In their modern form, manga date from shortly after World War II, but they have a long, complex pre-history in earlier Japanese art....
. It bears some similarities with Western
Western (genre)

The Western is a fiction genre seen in film, television, radio, literature, painting and other visual arts. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in what became the Western United States , but also in Western Canada, Mexico , Alaska and even Australia ....
; Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa

was a prominent Japanese people filmmaker, film producer, screenwriter and film editing. His first credited film as director, , was released in 1943, his last as director, , in 1993....
's Seven Samurai, for example, was remade in a Western setting as The Magnificent Seven
The Magnificent Seven

The Magnificent Seven is a 1960 in film American western film directed by John Sturges about a group of hired gunmen protecting a Mexican village from bandits....
. The famous anime
Anime

is animation in Japan and considered to be "Japanese animation" in the rest of the world. Anime dates from about 1917.Anime, in addition to manga , is extremely popular in Japan and well known throughout the world....
 and manga
Manga

, , are comics and print cartoons , in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 20th century. In their modern form, manga date from shortly after World War II, but they have a long, complex pre-history in earlier Japanese art....
 series InuYasha
InuYasha

, full title , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi. It premiered in Weekly Shonen Sunday on November 13, 1996 and concluded on June 18, 2008....
 is set in this period despite some moments that were set in the modern era.

Roles in jidaigeki

Among the characters in jidaigeki are a parade of people with occupations unfamiliar to modern Japanese
Japanese people

The are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan....
, and especially to foreigners. Here are a few.

Warriors

The warrior class included samurai, hereditary members in the military service of a daimyo or the shogun (themselves samurai). Ronin
Ronin

A was a samurai with no lord or master during the History_of_Japan#Feudal_Japan_.2812th_-_19th_century.29 of Japan. A samurai became masterless from the ruin or fall of his master, or after the loss of his master's favor or privilege....
, samurai without masters, were also warriors, and like samurai, wore two swords; they were, however, without inherited employment or status. Bugeisha were men, or in some stories women, who aimed to perfect their martial arts, often by travelling throughout the country. Ninja
Ninja

In history of Japan, a is a warrior specially trained in a variety of unorthodox arts of war. These include assassination, espionage, and various martial arts....
 were the secret service, specializing in stealth, the use of disguises, explosives, and concealed weapons.

Craftsmen

Craftsmen in jidaigeki included metalworkers (often abducted to mint counterfeit coins), bucket-makers, carpenters and plasterers, and makers of woodblock prints for art or newspapers.

Merchants

In addition to the owners of businesses large and small, the jidaigeki often portray the employees. The banto was a high-ranking employee of a merchant, the tedai, a lower helper. Many merchants employed children, or kozo. Itinerant merchants included the organized medicine-sellers, vegetable-growers from outside the city, and peddlers at fairs outside temples and shrines. In contrast, the great brokers in rice, lumber and other commodities operated sprawling shops in the city.

Governments

In the highest ranks of the shogunate were the roju. Below them were the wakadoshiyori, then the various bugyo or administrators, including the jisha bugyo (who administered temples and shrines), the kanjo bugyo (in charge of finances) and the two Edo machi bugyo. These last alternated by month as chief administrator of the city. Their role encompassed mayor, chief of police, and judge, and jury in criminal and civil matters.

Banya
The machi bugyo oversaw the police and fire departments. The police, or machikata, included the high-ranking yoriki and the doshin below them; both were samurai. In jidaigeki, they often have full-time patrolmen, okappiki and shitappiki, who were commoners. (Historically, these people were irregulars, called to service only when necessary.) Zenigata Heiji is an okappiki. The police lived in barracks at Hatchobori in Edo. They manned ban'ya, the watch-houses, throughout the metropolis. The jitte was the symbol of the police, from yoriki to shitappiki.

A separate police force handled matters involving samurai. The ometsuke were high-ranking officials in the shogunate; the metsuke and kachi-metsuke, lower-ranking police who could detain samurai. Yet another police force investigated arson-robberies, while Shinto shrines
Jinja (Shinto)

A Shinto shrine is a structure whose main purpose is to house a Shinto kami, and is usually characterized by the presence of a or sanctuary, where the kami is enshrined....
 and Buddhist temples
Buddhism

Buddhism is a family of beliefs and practices considered by most to be a religionand is based on the teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as "The Buddha" , who was born in what is today Nepal....
 fell under the control of another authority. The feudal nature of Japan made these matters delicate, and jurisdictional disputes are common in jidaigeki.

Edo had three fire departments. The daimyo-bikeshi were in the service of designated daimyo; the jobikeshi reported to the shogunate; while the machi-bikeshi, beginning under Yoshimune, were commoners under the administration of the machibugyo. Thus, even the fire companies have turf wars in the jidaigeki.

Yoshiwara
Each daimyo maintained a residence in Edo, where he lived during sankin kotai
Sankin kotai

Sankin kotai was a policy of the shogunate during most of the Edo period of History of Japan. The purpose was to control the daimyo. In adopting the policy, the shogunate was continuing and refining similar policies of Toyotomi Hideyoshi....
. His wife and children remained there even while he was away from Edo, and the ladies-in-waiting often feature prominently in jidaigeki. A high-ranking samurai, the Edo-garo, oversaw the affairs in the daimyo's absence. In addition to a staff of samurai, the household included ashigaru
Ashigaru

The Japanese ashigaru were conscription infantry of medieval Japan. During the Muromachi period, ashigaru were employed by the shogun as his personal army....
 (lightly armed warrior-servants) and chugen and yakko (servants often portrayed as flamboyant and crooked). Many daimyo employed doctors, goten'i; their counterpart in the shogun's household was the okuishi. Count on them to provide the poisons that kill and the potions that heal.

The cast of a wandering jidaigeki encountered a similar setting in each han. There, the karo were the kuni-garo and the jodai-garo. Tensions between them have provided plots for many stories.

What would a jidaigeki be without characters to give the flavor of the times? Jugglers, peddlers, fortune-tellers, candy-sellers, rag-pickers, blind
Blindness

Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define "blindness." Total blindness is the complete lack of form and visual light perception and is clinically recorded as "NLP," an abbreviation for "no ligh...
 moneylender
Moneylender

A moneylender offers small personal loans at high Interest, usually higher rates than the Interest#Market interest rates charged on credit cards or on Overdraft....
s, itinerant singer/shamisen
Shamisen

The shamisen or samisen , also called sangen is a three-stringed musical instrument played with a plectrum called a bachi. The pronunciation in Japanese language is usually "shamisen" but sometimes "jamisen" rendaku ....
-players, effete courtier
Courtier

A courtier is a person who attends the noble court of a monarch or other Executive . Historically the court was the centre of government as well as the Official residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together....
s from the imperial capital at Kyoto
Imperial Court in Kyoto

Imperial Court in Kyoto was the nominal ruling government of Japan from 794 AD until the Meiji Era, in which the court was moved to Tokyo and integrated into the Meiji government....
, the Dutch
Netherlands

The Netherlands is a country that is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands is located in North-West Europe, and bordered by the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east....
 kapitan from Nagasaki, streetwalkers
Street prostitution

Street prostitution is a specific form of prostitution in which the sex worker operates from the street. Although this form of sex work can be more dangerous than other forms of sex work, some street based sex workers claim that street prostitution allows greater control over when the person works and what services they offer....
 and prostitutes
Prostitution

The word prostitution is used to indicate:1. The exposing or otherwise offering oneself or someone else with the purpose of tempting potential customers to exchange money or goods for the promise of cooperativeness in sexual intercourse from the exposed person;...
 from the licensed and unlicensed quarters, the million-dollar kabuki
Kabuki

is the highly stylised classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers....
 actor, flute-playing mendicant komuso
Komuso

A was a mendicant monastic of the Fuke Zen school of Zen Buddhism. Komuso were characterised by the straw basket worn on the head, manifesting the absence of specific ego....
s wearing deep wicker hats, and of course geisha
Geisha

, or are traditional, female Japanese entertainers, whose skills include performing various Japanese arts, such as classical music and dance....
, provide a never-ending pageant of old Japan.

Conventions


There are several dramatic conventions of jidaigeki:

  • The heroes often wear eye makeup, and the villains often have disarranged hair.
  • A contrived form of old-fashioned Japanese speech, using modern pronunciation and grammar with a high degree of formality and frequent archaisms.
  • In long-running TV series, like Mito Komon and Zenigata Heiji, the lead and supporting actors sometimes change. This is done without any rationale for the change of appearance. The new actor simply appears in the place of the old one and the stories continue.
  • In a sword fight, when a large number of villains attacks the main character, they seldom act simultaneously. Instead, the villains wait their turn to be dispatched, often standing motionless until their turn to be easily defeated arrives.
  • On television, even fatal sword cuts draw little blood, and often do not even cut through clothing. Villains are chopped down with deadly, yet completely invisible, sword blows. Despite this, blood or wounding may be shown for arrow wounds or knife cuts.
  • On film, most often the violence is considerably stylized, sometimes to such a degree that sword cuts cause geysers of blood from wounds. Dismemberment and decapitation are also common.


Clichés and catchphrases

Authors of jidaigeki work clichés into the dialog. Here are a few:

  • Tonde hi ni iru natsu no mushi: Like bugs that fly into the fire in the summer [, they will come to their destruction]


  • Shishi shinchu no mushi: A wolf in sheep's clothing (literally, a parasite in the lion's body)


  • Kaji to kenka wa Edo no hana: Fires and brawls are the flower of Edo


  • Oedo happyaku yacho: "The eight hundred neighborhoods of Edo"


  • Tabi wa michizure: "Travel is who you take with you"


In addition, the authors of series invent their own clichés in the kimarizerifu (catchphrases) that the protagonist says at the same point in nearly every episode. In Mito Komon, in which the eponymous character disguises himself as a commoner, in the final swordfight, a sidekick invariably holds up an accessory bearing the shogunal crest and shouts, Hikae! Kono mondokoro ga me ni hairan ka?: "Back! Can you not see this emblem?", revealing the identity of the hitherto unsuspected old man with a goatee beard. The villains then instantly surrender and beg forgiveness. Likewise, Toyama no Kin-san
Toyama no Kin-san

is a popular character based on the historical Toyama Kagemoto, a samurai and official of the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Edo Period of History of Japan....
 bares his tattooed shoulder and snarls, Kono sakura fubuki o miwasureta to iwasane zo!: "I won't let you say you forgot this cherry-blossom blizzard!" After sentencing the criminals, he proclaims, Kore ni te ikken rakuchaku: "Case closed."

The kimarizerifu betrays the close connection between the jidaigeki and the comic-book superhero
Superhero

A superhero is a Character "of unprecedented physical prowess dedicated to act of derring-do in the public interest". Since the debut of the prototype superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes?ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas?have dominated American comic books and crossed over into other mass...
.

Famous jidaigeki


Films

  • Ansatsu "Assassin"
  • Aragami
    Aragami

    Aragami is a 2003 Japanese action film directed by Ryuhei Kitamura. It was Kitamura's contribution to the Duel Project, a challenge issued by producer Shinya Kawai to him and fellow director Yukihiko Tsutsumi to film a feature length movie with only two actors, battling in one setting, in only the time frame of one week....
  • Azumi
    Azumi

    is a manga series created by Yu Koyama, later adapted to film. It concerns the title character, a young woman brought up as part of a team of Assassination, charged with killing three warlords that threaten Feudal Japan with an agenda of war and bloodshed....
  • Azumi 2: Death or Love
    Azumi

    is a manga series created by Yu Koyama, later adapted to film. It concerns the title character, a young woman brought up as part of a team of Assassination, charged with killing three warlords that threaten Feudal Japan with an agenda of war and bloodshed....
  • Chushingura - Hana no maki yuki no maki
    Chushingura - Hana no maki yuki no maki

    Chushingura - Hana no maki yuki no maki , USA title: 47 Samurai aka Chushingura: 47 Samurai, Australia title: The 47 Ronin, is a 1962 color jidaigeki Cinema of Japan directed by Hiroshi Inagaki....
  • Hanzo the Razor
    Hanzo the Razor

    Hanzo the Razor is a fictional character featured in the trilogy of Japanese jidaigeki films of the same name. The films star Shintaro Katsu as the title character....
     series
  • Harakiri
  • The Hidden Blade
    The Hidden Blade

    is a 2004 film set in Japan of the 1860s, directed by Yoji Yamada. The plot revolves around several samurai during a time of change in the ruling and class structures of Japan....
  • The Hidden Fortress
    The Hidden Fortress

    File:The Hidden Fortress poster 2.jpgFile:The Hidden Fortress poster 3.jpg is a 1958 in film film directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshiro Mifune as General Rokurota Makabe and Misa Uehara as Princess Yuki....
  • Incident at Blood Pass
  • Kagemusha
    Kagemusha

    is a 1980 in film film by Akira Kurosawa. The title is a term used for an impersonator. It is set in the Sengoku period era of Japanese history and tells the story of a lower-class criminal who is taught to impersonate a dying warlord in order to dissuade opposing lords from attacking the newly vulnerable clan....
  • Kill!
    Kill!

    is a 1968 film directed by Kihachi Okamoto, written by Akira Murao, Kihachi Okamoto, and Shugoro Yamamoto and starring Tatsuya Nakadai....
  • Kurama Tengu series
  • Lady Snowblood
    Lady Snowblood (film)

    is a 1973 in film Cinema of Japan directed by Toshiya Fujita and starring Meiko Kaji. It is based on the manga of the Lady Snowblood by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Kazuo Kamimura and follows the story of the titular assassin seeking vengeance upon the bandits who raped her mother and murdered her father...
  • Legend of the Eight Samurai
  • Lone Wolf and Cub
    Lone Wolf and Cub

    is a well-known gekiga or manga created by the writer Kazuo Koike and the artist Goseki Kojima. Its story led to the creation of six films starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, four plays, a television series starring Kinnosuke Yorozuya, and much more....
     series
  • Mayonaka no Yaji-san Kita-san (Yaji and Kita: The Midnight Pilgrims)
  • Men Who Tread on a Tiger's Tail
  • Mibu gishi den (When the Last Sword Is Drawn)
  • Onibaba
    Onibaba

    is a J-horror based on a Buddhist parable. Directed by Kaneto Shindo, the film is set in rural Japan in the fourteenth century and features Nobuko Otowa and Jitsuko Yoshimura as a woman and her daughter-in-law who attack and kill passing samurai, strip them of their valuable armor and possessions, and dispose of the bodies in a deep pit....
  • Ran
    Ran (film)

    is a 1985 in film Screenwriter and Film director by Japanese people Film director Akira Kurosawa. It is a jidaigeki depicting the fall of Hidetora Ichimonji , an aging Sengoku Period-era warlord who decides to abdication as ruler in favor of his three sons....
  • Rashomon
    Rashomon (film)

    is a 1950 in film Cinema of Japan directed by Akira Kurosawa, working in close collaboration with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa. It stars Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori and Minoru Chiaki....
  • Rebel Samurai
  • Ronin Gai
  • Red Beard
    Red Beard

    is a 1965 in film Cinema of Japan directed by Akira Kurosawa about the relationship between a village doctor and his new trainee. It is an adaptation of a novel by Shugoro Yamamoto....
  • Samurai Assassin
    Samurai Assassin

    is a 1965 Japanese movie directed by Kihachi Okamoto and starring Toshiro Mifune, Koshiro Matsumoto, Yunosuke Ito, and Michiyo Aratama.Samurai Assassin is set in 1860, immediately before the Meiji Restoration changed Japanese society forever by doing away with the castes in society and reducing the position of the samurai class....
  • Samurai Banners
    Samurai Banners

    is a Japanese Samurai cinema film released in 1969. It was directed by Hiroshi Inagaki and is based on the life of the famous Sengoku-era battle strategist, Yamamoto Kansuke....
  • Samurai Rebellion
    Samurai Rebellion

    Rebellion, also known as Samurai Rebellion, is a 1967 Japanese film film director by Masaki Kobayashi. Its original Japanese title is Joi-uchi: Hairyo tsuma shimatsu , which translates as Rebellion: Receive the Wife....
  • Samurai Spy
    Samurai Spy

    is a 1965 film directed by Masahiro Shinoda. Made during the height of the cold war, the film follows the lives of samurai spies caught up in the power struggles of their times....
  • Samurai Trilogy
    Samurai Trilogy

    The Samurai Trilogy is a film trilogy directed by Hiroshi Inagaki and starring Toshiro Mifune as Miyamoto Musashi and Koji Tsuruta as Sasaki Kojiro....
  • Samurai Wolf
  • Sansho The Bailiff
    Sansho the Bailiff

    Sansho the Bailiff is a 1954 in film by Japanese people film director Kenji Mizoguchi. Based on a short story of the same name by Mori Ogai, it tells the story of two aristocratic children sold into slavery....
  • Shinobi No Mono
  • Shinsengumi
    Shinsengumi

    The were a special police force of the late shogunate period....
  • Shogun's Vault
  • Sword of Doom
  • Sword of the Beast
    Sword of the Beast

    is a 1965 in film jidaigeki film co-written and directed by Hideo Gosha. Set in 1857 at the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the story follows a fugitive samurai who's killed a counselor in his clan, to a mountain where he meets another samurai who is poaching gold....
  • Throne of Blood
    Throne of Blood

    is a 1957 in film directed by Akira Kurosawa, which transposes the plot of William Shakespeare play Macbeth to feudal Japan. It is regarded as one of Kurosawa's best films, and by many critics as one of the best film adaptations of Macbeth, despite having almost none of the play's script....
  • Sanjuro
  • Seven Samurai
  • Shogun Assassin
    Shogun Assassin

    Shogun Assassin, known in Japan as , is a very violent jidaigeki film made for the British and American markets and released in 1980. The film is considered a classic by many fans of the samurai-film genre....
  • Shogun's Shadow
  • Tange Sazen series
  • Tasogare Seibei (Twilight Samurai)
  • The 47 Ronin
    The 47 Ronin

    is a 1941 black and white two-part jidaigeki Cinema of Japan directed by Kenji Mizoguchi.The first part was originally released in Japan just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor....
  • Ugetsu Monogatari
    Ugetsu Monogatari

    Ugetsu monogatari is* A collection of nine independent stories, written by Ueda Akinari, first published in 1776, cf. Tales of Moonlight and Rain...
  • Yagyu Ichizoku no Imbo
  • Yojimbo
    Yojimbo (film)

    is a 1961 in film jidaigeki film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It tells the story of a ronin , portrayed by Toshiro Mifune, who arrives in a small town where competing crime lords make their money from gambling....
  • Zatoichi film series
    Zatoichi

    is a fictional character featured in one of Japan's longest running series of films and a television series set in the Edo period. The character, a blind masseur and swordmaster, was created by novelist ....


Television series

Kitamachibugyosho
Sakurayu
* Abarenbo Shogun
Abarenbo Shogun

is a Japanese television program on the TV Asahi network. Set in the eighteenth century, it showed fictitious events in the life of Tokugawa Yoshimune, the eighth Tokugawa clan shogun....
  • Choshichiro Edo Nikki
    Choshichiro Edo Nikki

    or Choshichiro's Edo Diaries was a long-running prime-time television series in Japan. The title character was Matsudaira Nagayori, the son of Tokugawa Tadanaga....
  • Edo o Kiru
    Edo o Kiru

    Edo o Kiru or Slashing Edo was a popular jidaigeki on Japan's Tokyo Broadcasting System. During the decades from its September 24, 1973 premiere until the July 25, 1994 finale, 214 episodes aired....
  • Gokenin Zankuro
    Gokenin Zankuro

    is a novel by Renzaburo Shibata. The protagonist of this jidaigeki is Matsudaira clan Zankuro, a low-ranking gokenin in the service of the Tokugawa shogunate....
  • Hissatsu series
  • Jitte-nin
  • Kage Doshin
  • Kage no Gundan (Shadow Warriors
    Shadow Warriors (TV show)

    Shadow Warriors was a Japanese television programs jidaigeki show featuring Sonny Chiba that ran for four seasons in the early 1980s. Chiba played different characters in each series....
    )
  • Kenkaku Shobai
  • Mito Komon
    Mito Komon

    is a Japan jidaigeki or period drama that has been on prime-time television since 1969. The title character is the historic Tokugawa Mitsukuni, former vice-shogun and retired daimyo of the Mito, Ibaraki Han ....
  • Moeyo Ken
  • Momotaro-zamurai
    Momotaro-zamurai

    Momotaro-zamurai or Samurai Momotaro is a Japanese language novel by Kiichiro Yamate . Published in 1946, the novel centers on an Edo period ronin, Shinjiro, the younger twin brother of a daimyo who was caught in a succession dispute....
  • Oedo Sosamo
    Oedo Sosamo

    and are long-running prime-time television jidaigeki programs that originally aired from 1970 to 1992.The series was broadcast on TV Tokyo . Early on, it carried the subtitle "Oedo Untouchables."...
  • Onihei Hanka-cho
  • Onmitsu Kenshi (The Samurai
    The Samurai (TV series)

    The Samurai was a Japanese television Jidaigeki series of the 1960s made by Senkosha Productions. The series premiered on October 7 1962 in Japan and ran until March 1965....
    )
  • Ooka Echizen
    Ooka Echizen

    was a long-running prime-time television jidaigeki in Japan. From March 16, 1970 to March 15, 1999, 402 episodes were broadcast. Also, a two-hour special aired on March 20, 2006, commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Panasonic Gekijo, which occupies the Monday evening 8:00?8:54 time slot on the Tokyo Broadcasting System network, sp...
  • Sanbiki ga Kiru!
    Sanbiki ga Kiru!

    or Three for the Kill! is a group of seven television jidaigeki series broadcast by TV Asahi in Japan. The show aired in the Thursday evening eight o'clock time slot....
  • Shinsen gumi Keppuroku
  • Shogun Iemitsu Shinobi Tabi
    Shogun Iemitsu Shinobi Tabi

    was a pair of television jidaigeki series on TV Asahi in Japan. The first aired in 1990?1991 and the sequel in 1992?1993. Kunihiko Mitamura portrayed Tokugawa Iemitsu in both series....
  • Taiga drama
    Taiga drama

    is the name NHK gives to the annual, year-long Historical novel television series it broadcasts in Japan. Beginning in 1963 with the black-and-white Hana no Shogai, starring kabuki actor Onoe Shoroku and Takarazuka Revue star Awashima Chikage, the network has hired a producer, director, writer, music director, and actors for the series....
     (NHK
    NHK

    , or Japan Broadcasting Corporation, is Japan's public broadcaster. The NHK is financed by a television licence. This Japanese public corporation has always identified itself to its audiences by the English pronunciation of its initials, NHK....
     annual series)
  • Tenamon'ya Sando-gasa
  • Tenga Dodo
  • Tenga Gomen
  • Toyama no Kin-san
    Toyama no Kin-san

    is a popular character based on the historical Toyama Kagemoto, a samurai and official of the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Edo Period of History of Japan....
  • Ude ni Oboe ga Aru
  • Zatoichi (television series)
  • Zenigata Heiji
    Zenigata Heiji

    Zenigata Heiji is the hero of a series of Japanese novels, films and TV programmes set in the Edo period of Japanese history. He is a policeman who catches criminals by throwing coins, the zeni of the title, thus Zenigata Heiji....


Video games

  • Downtown Special: Kunio-kun no Jidaigeki dayo Zen'in Shugo - sequel to Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari (River City Ransom
    River City Ransom

    River City Ransom, released as in Japan and as Street Gangs in the PAL region, is a video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System/Nintendo Entertainment System, originally released in 1989 in video gaming....
     in America) set in feudal Japan.
  • Sengoku Ace
  • Shogun: Total War
    Shogun: Total War

    Shogun: Total War is the first of Creative Assembly's Total War . It is a history-based Strategy game#Grand strategy that combines turn-based provincial development with real-time tactics....
  • Kengo series
    Kengo

    Kengo is the name of a series of three video games developed by Genki . Kengo is considered a spiritual successor to the Bushido Blade game series for the Playstation....
  • Bushido Blade series
    Bushido Blade (video game)

    is a 3D computer graphics Fighting game#Versus fighter developed by Light Weight and published by Square Co. and Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation....


Anime and manga

  • Basilisk
  • Blade of the Immortal
    Blade of the Immortal

    is a Japanese manga series by Hiroaki Samura. The series won an Excellence Prize at the 1997 Japan Media Arts Festival and the Eisner Award in 2000 for Best U.S....
  • Carried by the Wind: Tsukikage Ran
    Carried by the Wind: Tsukikage Ran

    is an anime action comedy written and directed by Akitaro Daichi, and produced by Madhouse Studios. The television series follows Ran and Meow, two wanderers who face all sorts of antagonists in Tokugawa Japan....
  • Crescent Moon in the Warring States
    Crescent Moon in the Warring States

    is a manga written by Nobuhiro Watsuki back in his days as a manga artist assistant. It is his first professional work, which is indirectly set in the Rurouni Kenshin world....
  • Fire Tripper
    Fire Tripper

    is an anime Original Video Animation based on a manga story by Rumiko Takahashi. In North America, it was released on VHS by Central Park Media under the "Rumic World" series ....
  • InuYasha
    InuYasha

    , full title , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi. It premiered in Weekly Shonen Sunday on November 13, 1996 and concluded on June 18, 2008....
  • Kaze Hikaru
    Kaze Hikaru

    is a Japanese manga series by Taeko Watanabe.Kaze Hikaru is set in the bakumatsu. After her father and older brother are murdered, Tominaga Sei decides to pose as a boy named so that she can join the Mibu-Roshigumi and avenge their deaths....
  • Ninja Scroll
    Ninja Scroll

    is a Japanese action film Thriller anime, set in History of Japan#Feudal Japan, by critically acclaimed film director/writer Yoshiaki Kawajiri who was best known for his previous thriller Wicked City ....
  • Princess Mononoke
    Princess Mononoke

    is a 1997 in film anime historical fantasy feature film Screenwriter and Film director by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli. It was first released in Japan on July 12, 1997 and in the United States on October 29, 1999 in select cities and on November 26, 1999 in Canada....
  • Rakudai Ninja Rantaro
    Rakudai Ninja Rantaro

    is a comic ninja manga series created by Sobe Amako in 1986. It is being serialized in the Asahi Shogakusei Shinbun newspaper April through June and October through December....
  • Rurouni Kenshin
    Rurouni Kenshin

    is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Nobuhiro Watsuki. The fictional setting takes place during the early Meiji period in Japan. The story is about a fictional assassin named Himura Kenshin, formerly known as the who becomes a wanderer to protect the people of Japan....
  • Samurai Champloo
    Samurai Champloo

    is a Japanese Anime Television program consisting of twenty-six episodes. It was broadcast in Japan from May 20, 2004 through March 19, 2005 on the television network, Fuji TV....
  • The Yagyu Ninja Scrolls
    The Yagyu Ninja Scrolls

    is an 11-volume manga series written by Masaki Segawa and first published in Japan by Kodansha in 2005. Like Masaki Segawa's first manga Basilisk , the Yagyu Ninja Scrolls is based on a novel from Futaro Yamada Ninpocho series and can therefore be considered a sequel to Basilisk, especially as several of the same historical characters featured in...


Famous directors

Names are in Western order, with the surname after the given name.

  • Kon Ichikawa
    Kon Ichikawa

    was a prominent Japanese film director....
  • Akira Kurosawa
    Akira Kurosawa

    was a prominent Japanese people filmmaker, film producer, screenwriter and film editing. His first credited film as director, , was released in 1943, his last as director, , in 1993....
  • Masaki Kobayashi
    Masaki Kobayashi

    was a Japanese people film director.Among his films is Kwaidan , a collection of four kwaidan drawn from Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things by Lafcadio Hearn, each of which has a surprise ending....
  • Shozo Makino
    Shozo Makino

    File:Shozo Makino.jpgShozo Makino was a Japanese film director, film producer and businessman who is regarded as the pioneering director of Cinema of Japan....
  • Kenji Mizoguchi
    Kenji Mizoguchi

    Kenji Mizoguchi was a Japanese people filmmaker and screenwriter. He is most famous for his film Ugetsu which won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and for his mastery of long take and mis-en-scene....
  • Kihachi Okamoto
    Kihachi Okamoto

    was a Cinema of Japan film director who has worked in several different Film genres, including jidaigeki. He was born in Yonago, Tottori. He graduated from the Meiji University....
  • Tomu Uchida
    Tomu Uchida

    was a Japanese film director. Tomu Uchida, whose name translates to ?spit out dreams? is considered one of the less well known masters of Japanese cinema in the West, whose films are rarely screened and not widely available on DVD....


Famous actors and actresses

Names are in Western order, with the given name
Given name

A given name is a personal name that specifies and differentiates between members of a group of individuals, especially in a family, all of whose members usually share the same family name ....
, then the family name
Family name

A family name or last name is a type of surname and part of a personal name indicating the family to which the person belongs. The use of family names is widespread in cultures around the world....
.

  • Kanjuro Arashi
  • Yoshimi Ashikawa
  • Shin'ichi Chiba (Sonny Chiba
    Sonny Chiba

    , also known as Sonny Chiba, is a Japanese people actor. Chiba was one of the first actors to achieve stardom through his skills in martial arts, initially in Japan and later before an international audience....
    )
  • Makoto Fujita
    Makoto Fujita

    is a Japanese people actor. He was born in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, the son of silent-film actor Rintaro Fujima, and started his career as a comedian on the circuit in 1952....
  • Kimiko Ikegami
    Kimiko Ikegami

    is a Japanese people actress. Born in Manhattan, New York City, she moved to Kyoto at age 3. Kimiko graduated from Horikoshi High School in Nakano, Tokyo and subsequently attended Tamagawa University....
  • Koji Ishizaka
  • Chiezo Kataoka
    Chiezo Kataoka

    was a Japanese people actor. Born in 1903 in Gunma Prefecture, he was raised in Tokyo. His first starring role in a film was in 1923. Specializing in jidaigeki, he played the lead in various films before and during World War II....
  • Shintaro Katsu
    Shintaro Katsu

    , born Toshio Okumura was a Japanese people actor, singer, Film producer, and film director. He was the son of kabuki performer Katsutoji Kineya who was renowned for his nagauta and shamisen skills, younger brother of actor Tomisaburo Wakayama , husband of actress Tamao Nakamura , and father of actor Ryutaro Gan ....
  • Morio Kazama
  • Kin'ya Kitaoji
  • Hitomi Kuroki
  • Machiko Kyô
  • Ken Matsudaira
    Ken Matsudaira

    Ken Matsudaira is a Japanese person actor from Toyohashi, Aichi, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. His real name is Sueshichi Suzuki .Active both in television and on stage , he also sings....
  • Hiroki Matsukata
    Hiroki Matsukata

    Matsukata Hiroki is a Japanese people actor. Born Meguro Koju to jidaigeki actor Jushiro Konoe and actress Mizukawa Yaeko, he has one younger brother, actor Meguro Yuki....
  • Keiko Matsuzaka
    Keiko Matsuzaka

    is a Japanese actress.Born in Ota, Tokyo, her father was a naturalized South Korean; her mother, a Japanese people. Active as a child actress in the 1960s, she came into her own as an adult with Kadokawa Pictures, then in 1972 with Shochiku....
  • Meiko Kaji
    Meiko Kaji

    is a Japanese Enka singer and actress....
  • Toshiro Mifune
    Toshiro Mifune

    Toshiro Mifune was a Japanese people actor who appeared in almost 170 feature films. He is best known for his collaboration with filmmaker Akira Kurosawa in films such as Rashomon , Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, and Yojimbo ....
  • Yoshiko Mita
    Yoshiko Mita

    is a Japanese people actress. Born in the city of Osaka, she graduated from Joshibi High School of Art and Design in Suginami, Tokyo. In 1960, she was hired by Toei Company and made her acting debut....
  • Kunihiko Mitamura
  • Hiroaki Murakami
    Hiroaki Murakami

    is a Japanese people actor. He specializes in jidaigeki roles, and has also taken parts in tokusatsu and modern productions.Born in Rikuzentakata, Iwate, Iwate Prefecture, he enrolled in Hosei University but withdrew when he successfully auditioned for a part in Kamen Rider . He made his debut as Tsukuba Hiroshi in Kamen Rider ...
  • Akira Nagoya
  • Tatsuya Nakadai
    Tatsuya Nakadai

    is a Japanese leading film actor.He became a star after he was discovered working as a Tokyo shop clerk by filmmaker Masaki Kobayashi during the early 1950s....
  • Nakamura Kichiemon II
    Nakamura Kichiemon II

    He attended Waseda University. His yago is "Harimaya" and his crest is the ageha-no-cho butterfly of the Taira clan.Active in kabuki and television, Kichiemon is famous in the role of Saito Musashibo Benkei, whom he has portrayed on stage in Kanjincho and Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura....
  • Umenosuke Nakamura
  • Ko Nishimura
  • Megumi Oji
    Megumi Oji

    is a Japanese people actress from Kakogawa, Hyogo in Hyogo Prefecture. She is a graduate of Asia University .Megumi entered acting in 1989. She made her debut the following year in a commercial for Seibu Department Stores....
  • Hashizo Okawa
  • Matsunosuke Onoe
    Matsunosuke Onoe

    , sometimes known as Medama no Matchan , was a Japanese actor. His birth name is Tsuruzo Nakamura. He is sometimes credited as Yukio Koki, Tamijaku Onoe, or Tsunusaburo Onoe, and as a kabuki artist he went by the name Tsurusaburo Onoe....
  • Teruhiko Saigo
  • Masato Sakai
  • Hiroyuki Sanada
    Hiroyuki Sanada

    is a Japanese people actor.BiographyEarly lifeSanada was born in Tokyo, Japan. He began training with Sonny Chiba's Japan Action Club....
  • Asao Sano
  • Koichi Sato
  • Kotaro Satomi
  • Takashi Shimura
    Takashi Shimura

    was one of Japanese people greatest actors of the 20th century.Born in Ikuno, Hyogo, Japan, one of his earliest film roles was in Kenji Mizoguchi's Osaka Elegy ....
  • Ryotaro Sugi
  • Yoshie Taira
    Yoshie Taira

    is a Japanese people actress. Born in Obihiro, Hokkaido on October 10, 1954, she graduated from St. Margaret's Junior College in Suginami, Tokyo.From 1985 to 1999, she was a costar in the Tokyo Broadcasting System prime-time television series Ooka Echizen in the role of Yukie, the wife of the historic Ooka Tadasuke....
  • Hideki Takahashi
    Hideki Takahashi

    Hideki Takahashi is a Japanese people actor. Born in Kisarazu, Chiba near Tokyo, he attended Ichikawa Gakuen and later Nihon University....
  • Reiko Takashima
    Reiko Takashima

    'Reiko Takashima' is a Japanese actor.Active in television series, movies, and commercials, her roles have included ninja in jidaigeki such as Abarembo Shogun and Abare Hasshu Goyo Tabi, the wife Oeyo of the shogun Tokugawa Hidetada, Lady Fujitsubo in a special with characters based on The Tale of Genji, a yakuza boss in the Gokudo no On...
  • Masakazu
    Masakazu Tamura

    is a Japanese film and theatre actor....
    , Ryo
    Ryo Tamura

    is a Japanese people actor from Kyoto. His father was silent-film star Tsumasaburo Bando. With his elder brothers, the late Takahiro Tamura and Masakazu Tamura, he is one of the Three Tamura Brothers....
    , and Takahiro Tamura (the three Tamura brothers)
  • Sanae Tsuchida
  • Eijiro Tono
  • Go Wakabayashi
    Go Wakabayashi

    is a Japanese people film and television actor from Nagasaki, Nagasaki.A graduate of Senshu University, Wakabayashi became a member of Shin Kokugeki, then Wakabayashi Promotions....
  • Tomisaburo Wakayama
    Tomisaburo Wakayama

    Tomisaburo Wakayama was a Japanese people actor, best known for playing Lone Wolf and Cub#Story, the disgraced, scowling, 17th century ronin in the six Lone Wolf and Cub samurai feature movies....
  • Ken Watanabe
  • Kinnosuke Yorozuya
  • Kaoru Yumi
    Kaoru Yumi

    is a Japanese people actress....


Trivia

Star Wars
Star Wars

Star Wars is an epic film space opera Media franchise initially conceived by George Lucas. The first film in the franchise was simply titled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, but later had the subtitle Episode IV: A New Hope added to distinguish it from its sequels and prequels....
 creator George Lucas
George Lucas

George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an Academy Award-nominated United States film director, film producer, screenwriter and chairman of Lucasfilm Ltd. He is best known for being the creator of the Epic film Sci-Fi franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones....
 has admitted to being inspired significantly by the period works of Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa

was a prominent Japanese people filmmaker, film producer, screenwriter and film editing. His first credited film as director, , was released in 1943, his last as director, , in 1993....
, and many thematic elements found in Star Wars bear the influence of Chanbara filmmaking. In an interview, Lucas has specifically cited the fact that he became acquainted with the term jidaigeki while in Japan, and it is widely assumed that he took inspiration for the term Jedi
Jedi

The Jedi are members of a fictional Monasticism non-theistic order in the Star Wars universe created by George Lucas. They are known for their observance of Force , specifically the "light side" of the force, and the rejection of the "dark side" of the Force, as well as the dark side's adherents, the Sith....
 from this.

External links

  • by Allen White on Greencine, this article discusses specific chambara films, their distinction from regular jidai-geki, and the evolution of the genre.


See also

  • Cinema of Japan
    Cinema of Japan

    The has a history in Japan that spans more than 100 years....
  • Samurai cinema
    Samurai cinema

    While earlier samurai period pieces were more dramatic rather than action-based, samurai movies post World War II have become more action-based, with darker and more violent characters....
  • Gendaigeki
    Gendaigeki

    Gendaigeki is a genre of film and television or theater play in Japan. Unlike the jidaigeki genre of period dramas, whose stories are set in the Edo period, gendaigeki stories are contemporary dramas set in the modern world....
  • Shomingeki
    Shomingeki

    Shomingeki is a genre of Neorealism film and television or theater plays in Japan which focuses on the lives of common working class people....
  • List of jidaigeki
    List of jidaigeki

    Introductionjidaigeki are Samurai Movies so in essence this is a list of samurai movies.It can be sorted in various ways using the column headers:...
  • Jedi
    Jedi

    The Jedi are members of a fictional Monasticism non-theistic order in the Star Wars universe created by George Lucas. They are known for their observance of Force , specifically the "light side" of the force, and the rejection of the "dark side" of the Force, as well as the dark side's adherents, the Sith....