Daibutsu, Kamakura

Daibutsu, Kamakura
Daibutsu in Kamakura, June 2010. There were thousands of school kids visiting that day. It was still great fun.

Monday, October 05, 2009

Movie about Nobunaga's Azuchi castle

Here is a teaser for the movie Katen no Shiro which is about the construction of Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga's (1534-82) grand and magnificent Azuchi castle. Apparently this movie was released on September 12th. Has anybody seen it?

From the teaser, it looks pretty amazing. I wish I could see it but I would need English subtitles. Who knows when that would happen. The well-known actor Toshiyuki Nishida plays a lead role in the film. Anybody familiar with Japanese television will recognize him. The movie website is here.

Azuchi castle was built by Nobunaga to be a symbol throughout Japan of his growing power. Azuchi was not the typical rugged and foreboding castle of the time but was built lavishly to impress. The castle was located near Kyoto and took three years and thousands of laborers and artists to build. It was completed in 1579 as Nobunaga was nearing the height of his power and with national hegemony within his sights. Unfortunately the castle was destroyed only three years later in 1582 by Nobunaga's assassin Akechi Mitsuhide (or possibly was burned by looting townspeople or another theory that it was burned by one of Nobunaga's sons).


8 comments:

  1. Seu blog é muito bom! Parabéns! Abraços.

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  2. Holy cow! I need to find this movie.

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  3. Tell me how it is if you see it.

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  4. I did not get a chance to see the movie while in Japan. I did buy the novel which was written by Yamamoto Kenichi

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  5. Cool. Let me know how the novel is after you finish.

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  6. Hmmm. You think Mitsuhide burnt down Azuchi Castle? To find out if you are right, you will have to tune into the SA. :)

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  7. Oooh, now I am intrigued. Tell me where because the Azuchi castle article on SA doesn't say much which forced me to go to the dreaded Wikipedia. It said it was burned by his forces but also theorized that it was burned by looting townspeople or one of Nobunaga's sons. I had previously been curious about this because I had not read anywhere that I could recall that said who or how it was burnt down. Tell me. Tell me who burned it down pleeeeease.

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  8. Never mind. I found the information from the Samurai Archives article about Oda Nobuo, the 2nd son of Nobunaga.

    http://wiki.samurai-archives.com/index.php?title=Oda_Nobuo

    It talks about the theories that it was either Nobuo that burned Azuchi or the townspeople.

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