Kinoshita Keisuke

[Mark Schilling]

From: Mark Schilling <schill at gol.com>
To: <KineJapan at lists.asc.ohio-state.edu>


Kinoshita Keisuke, now 85, was in the news recently for co-writing the
script to Dora Heita, a period drama based Machi Bugyo Nikki by Shugoro
Yamamoto that Kon Ichikawa will be begin shooting this fall. Other
co-writers for the script, which was completed in 1983, include Ichikawa,
Kurosawa Akira and Kobayashi Masaki. Koji Yakusho is starring and Kazuyoshi
Okuyama's Team Okuyama is producing, with the financial backing of Namco.
Kurosawa picked the title. Yamamoto's work was also the inspiration for
Tsubaki Sanjuro, Akahige, Dodesukaden and the unproduced Kurosawa script
Umi wa Miteita.  
     The story is remiscent of Yojimbo. A new bugyo, played by Yakusho,
arrives in a wide-open town run by the three yakuza oyabun, with the
complicity of corrupt clan officials.  The bugyo routs the oyabun and goes
after their backers, though with the single-handed panache of Mifune's
ronin in Yojimbo, I cannot say.  

Mark Schilling <schill at gol.com>