Sumo East and West
Encyclopedia
"Sumo East and West" is a feature documentary
about Americans
in the ancient Japan
ese sport of sumo
wrestling. The film had its World Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City
in May 2003 and was broadcast nationally on PBS
’s Independent Lens
on June 8th, 2004.
, who arrived in Japan in 1990 at the age of 18 to become a professional sumo wrestler alongside another teenaged Hawaiian, Chad Rowan of Waimanalo. The two became fast friends during the arduous apprenticeship as sumo novices but their paths soon diverged, as Wayne suffered a ruptured pancreas that ended his career and sent him back to Hawaii, while Chad—under the name Akebono
--went on to become the first non-Japanese yokozuna (grand champion) in the two thousand-year history of sumo. "Sumo East and West" recounts how Wayne recovered from this crushing turn of events to become a star in the burgeoning world of amateur sumo, culminating in winning both the heavyweight and Open categories at the North American Amateur Sumo Championship in Los Angeles in 1999.
Using Wayne's story as its spine, "Sumo East and West" tells the broader story of the culture clash between East and West seen through the prism of sumo, including sumo's role in Commodore Perry
's opening of Japan in 1851; in the influx of Japanese immigrants to Hawaii at the turn of the 19th century; and in the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II; and in Japan's complex love-hate relationship with American pop culture in the postwar period. A principal focus is the state of sumo today, as the sport fights for relevance in modern Japan, while aficionados in the US are busily transforming it into Westernized form for tournaments in Las Vegas
casinos and hoping for its inclusion in the Olympic Games
.
In addition to Akebono, the film also features interviews with two other Hawaii-born superstars of pro sumo who were at the forefront of the controversial transformation of the sport: Konishiki and Jesse "Takamiyama" Kuhaulua. Also featured are Emmanuel Yarborough
of New Jersey
, the 1995 World Amateur Sumo Champion and—at 750 lbs, the largest athlete in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records; Henry "Sentoryu" Miller
of St. Louis, Missouri
, the only African-American to reach the top division
of pro sumo; and Judge Katsugo Miho of Hawaii, a veteran of the fabled all-nisei 442d Regimental Combat Team
who helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp and later negotiated the way for the first Hawaiian wrestlers to enter pro sumo in Japan.
"Sumo East and West" was made by the husband-and-wife team Ferne Pearlstein (director/cinematographer/producer/editor) and Robert Edwards (writer/producer/editor). Among their other work, Pearlstein won the Excellence in Cinematography Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival
for shooting the documentary feature "Imelda"; Edwards wrote and directed the narrative feature “Land of the Blind
” (2006) starring Ralph Fiennes
and Donald Sutherland
. It was filmed in Super 16mm in Japan, Hawaii, Los Angeles
, and Atlantic City, and funded by ITVS, Pacific Islanders in Communications (PIC), the National Asian American Telecommunications Association (NAATA), the Japan-United States Friendship Commission, and the Japan Foundation. Following its World Premiere at Tribeca, it screened at dozens of film festivals including the Los Angeles Film Festival
, AFI
SilverDocs, and the Director’s View Film Festival (where it won first prize). In April 2004 it screened for a crowd of 6000 people on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu as part of the Hawaii International Film Festival
's "Sunset on the Beach" series.
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about Americans
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in the ancient Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, 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 sport of sumo
Sumo
is a competitive full-contact sport where a wrestler attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet. The sport originated in Japan, the only country where it is practiced professionally...
wrestling. The film had its World Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in May 2003 and was broadcast nationally on PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
’s Independent Lens
Independent Lens
Airing weekly on PBS through ITVS, the Emmy Award-winning series Independent Lens introduces new drama and documentary films made by independent filmmakers. Past seasons of Independent Lens have been presented by hosts Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Terrence Howard, Maggie...
on June 8th, 2004.
Details
"Sumo East and West" tells the story of Wayne Vierra of Kahuku, HawaiiHawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, who arrived in Japan in 1990 at the age of 18 to become a professional sumo wrestler alongside another teenaged Hawaiian, Chad Rowan of Waimanalo. The two became fast friends during the arduous apprenticeship as sumo novices but their paths soon diverged, as Wayne suffered a ruptured pancreas that ended his career and sent him back to Hawaii, while Chad—under the name Akebono
Akebono Taro
is a retired American born-Japanese sumo wrestler from Waimānalo, Hawaii. Joining the professional sport in Japan in 1988, he was trained by pioneering Hawaiian sumo wrestler Takamiyama and rose swiftly up the rankings, reaching the top division in 1990...
--went on to become the first non-Japanese yokozuna (grand champion) in the two thousand-year history of sumo. "Sumo East and West" recounts how Wayne recovered from this crushing turn of events to become a star in the burgeoning world of amateur sumo, culminating in winning both the heavyweight and Open categories at the North American Amateur Sumo Championship in Los Angeles in 1999.
Using Wayne's story as its spine, "Sumo East and West" tells the broader story of the culture clash between East and West seen through the prism of sumo, including sumo's role in Commodore Perry
Commodore Perry
Commodore Perry may refer to:* Commodore Matthew Perry , United States Navy officer* Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry , United States Navy officer* Commodore Perry Owens , American gunfighter...
's opening of Japan in 1851; in the influx of Japanese immigrants to Hawaii at the turn of the 19th century; and in the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II; and in Japan's complex love-hate relationship with American pop culture in the postwar period. A principal focus is the state of sumo today, as the sport fights for relevance in modern Japan, while aficionados in the US are busily transforming it into Westernized form for tournaments in Las Vegas
Las Vegas Strip
The Las Vegas Strip is an approximately stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard in Clark County, Nevada; adjacent to, but outside the city limits of Las Vegas proper. The Strip lies within the unincorporated townships of Paradise and Winchester...
casinos and hoping for its inclusion in the Olympic Games
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
.
In addition to Akebono, the film also features interviews with two other Hawaii-born superstars of pro sumo who were at the forefront of the controversial transformation of the sport: Konishiki and Jesse "Takamiyama" Kuhaulua. Also featured are Emmanuel Yarborough
Emmanuel Yarborough
Emanuel 'Manny' Yarborough is an amateur sumo wrestler and mixed martial arts competitor, also having competed in judo, wrestling, and American football. He is 6 ft 8 in tall and has weighed up to 800+ lb . He holds the Guinness World Record for the largest athlete. Emanuel wears a size 21...
of New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, the 1995 World Amateur Sumo Champion and—at 750 lbs, the largest athlete in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records; Henry "Sentoryu" Miller
Henry Armstrong Miller
Since his retirement from sumo, Sentoryu has tried his luck at mixed martial arts. His debut was for PRIDE in April 2004.He has six wins and nine losses in his sixteen fights to date. He styles himself Henry "Sentoryu" Miller. He made an agreement with World Victory Road and recently fought...
of St. Louis, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
, the only African-American to reach the top division
Makuuchi
or is the top division of professional sumo. Its size is fixed at 42 wrestlers , ordered into five ranks according to their ability as defined by their performance in previous tournaments....
of pro sumo; and Judge Katsugo Miho of Hawaii, a veteran of the fabled all-nisei 442d Regimental Combat Team
Regimental combat team
A regimental combat team was a provisional major infantry unit of the United States Army during the World War II and the Korean War, and of the U.S. Marine Corps to the present day...
who helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp and later negotiated the way for the first Hawaiian wrestlers to enter pro sumo in Japan.
"Sumo East and West" was made by the husband-and-wife team Ferne Pearlstein (director/cinematographer/producer/editor) and Robert Edwards (writer/producer/editor). Among their other work, Pearlstein won the Excellence in Cinematography Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
for shooting the documentary feature "Imelda"; Edwards wrote and directed the narrative feature “Land of the Blind
Land of the Blind (film)
Land of the Blind is a 2006 drama film starring Donald Sutherland, Ralph Fiennes, Tom Hollander and Lara Flynn Boyle.Land of the Blind is a dark political satire, based on several incidents throughout history in which tyrannical rulers were overthrown by new leaders who proved to be just as bad, if...
” (2006) starring Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes is an English actor and film director. He has appeared in such films as The English Patient, In Bruges, The Constant Gardener, Strange Days, The Duchess and Schindler's List....
and Donald Sutherland
Donald Sutherland
Donald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
. It was filmed in Super 16mm in Japan, Hawaii, Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, and Atlantic City, and funded by ITVS, Pacific Islanders in Communications (PIC), the National Asian American Telecommunications Association (NAATA), the Japan-United States Friendship Commission, and the Japan Foundation. Following its World Premiere at Tribeca, it screened at dozens of film festivals including the Los Angeles Film Festival
Los Angeles Film Festival
The Los Angeles Film Festival, presented by the Los Angeles Times is an event held annually in June in downtown Los Angeles, California. The Los Angeles Film Festival began as the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival in 1995. The first LAIFF took place over the course of five days in a single...
, AFI
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
SilverDocs, and the Director’s View Film Festival (where it won first prize). In April 2004 it screened for a crowd of 6000 people on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu as part of the Hawaii International Film Festival
Hawaii International Film Festival
The Hawaii International Film Festival is a film festival held in the U.S. state of Hawaii. It was started in 1981 by Jeannette Paulson Hereniko and has been held annually in the fall for two weeks...
's "Sunset on the Beach" series.
Cast
- Wayne Vierra
- Akebono
- Jesse Kuhaulua (aka Takamiya, aka Azumazeki)
- Konishiki
- Emmanuel "Manny" Yarbrough
- Sentoryu (aka Henry Miller)
- Katsugo Miho
External links
- Official Documentary Website: Sumo East and West
- Original PBS website for Documentary on Independent Lens: Sumo East and West
- Wikipedia: SUMOSumois a competitive full-contact sport where a wrestler attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet. The sport originated in Japan, the only country where it is practiced professionally...
- Japan Guide (sumo)
- Official PBS Website: Sumo East and West, Global Voices
- My First Date With Sumo (2007), Gould, Chris (Includes interview with Wayne Vierra)
Reviews
- Honolulu Star Bulletin
- Variety
- New York Times
- Austin Chronicle
- The Forward
- Film Threat
- Ka Leo O Hawaii News
- Metroactive
- Adcombat News