JPN: Anju To Zushio Maru "The nobles Anju and Zushio"/ DIR: Taiji Yabushita; Yugo Serikawa / SCR: Sumie Tanaka (Or: Ogai Mori) /DES: Isamu Takahashi / ART: Seiichi Toriizuka / ANI: Sanae Yamamoto / MUS: Tadashi Kinoshita; Hajime Kaburagui / PRD: Tôei Dôga. 1h 23m.
When the Governor of Mutsû is falsely acussed of a crime, his lands would be confiscated and his family left to fend for themselves. His children's, the teenager Anju and her little brother Zushio, must grow up at once in order to deal with the vicissitudes of their fate. ///
This is Tôei Dôga's fourth animated feature film; and one of my all time favorites: Anju To Zushio Maru, presented in the West as "The littlest Warrior" or "The orphan brother" (the Italians have the worst translated movie titles; here: Robin e i due moschettieri e mezzo, Robin and the two and a half musketeers). It's based on the novel Sanshô Dayû (Sansho the Steward, 1915) written by Ogai Mori (1862-1922).
Usually Fantasy is aimed at a young audience but Japanese are weird people, and so they sometime explore very dark themes in their animations. In the first half of the movie we are forced to watch the completion of a family tragedy. Here, the mother will be sold into prostitution, and the childrens as slaves. "You should not be worried.-their mother says -Your father is innocent", but she cannot see that there is no justice in this fairy tale world, therefore she will be blinded (punishment for trying to escape).
This animation is so deep and unique that we are even able to witness a simbolic suicide when the beautiful Anju -runing away from torture-, throw herself to a Lake, and is transformed into a white swann that will fly away from all her troubles.
When the Governor of Mutsû is falsely acussed of a crime, his lands would be confiscated and his family left to fend for themselves. His children's, the teenager Anju and her little brother Zushio, must grow up at once in order to deal with the vicissitudes of their fate. ///
This is Tôei Dôga's fourth animated feature film; and one of my all time favorites: Anju To Zushio Maru, presented in the West as "The littlest Warrior" or "The orphan brother" (the Italians have the worst translated movie titles; here: Robin e i due moschettieri e mezzo, Robin and the two and a half musketeers). It's based on the novel Sanshô Dayû (Sansho the Steward, 1915) written by Ogai Mori (1862-1922).
Usually Fantasy is aimed at a young audience but Japanese are weird people, and so they sometime explore very dark themes in their animations. In the first half of the movie we are forced to watch the completion of a family tragedy. Here, the mother will be sold into prostitution, and the childrens as slaves. "You should not be worried.-their mother says -Your father is innocent", but she cannot see that there is no justice in this fairy tale world, therefore she will be blinded (punishment for trying to escape).
This animation is so deep and unique that we are even able to witness a simbolic suicide when the beautiful Anju -runing away from torture-, throw herself to a Lake, and is transformed into a white swann that will fly away from all her troubles.
This family drama develops multiple elements of Fantasy. A good example of this will be the duel between Zushio and the Bakemono (a type of Yôkai: a spirit that have the abilitie to transform). Also the children's maid is killed by drowning and then transformed into a mermaid (a Ningyo).
I've put it first on the list because this movie perfectly ilustrates how Japanese people use Fantasy to tell all type of stories. Anju To Zushio Maru would be severely criticized by future generations of animators. Tôei Dôga had many problems with strikes during the 60's, the working conditions were miserable and the management - as usual - complet assholes. This movie sort of exalt the acceptance of stoic suffering: "bear your suffering you'll get rewarded". I don't know if that is the final message, certainly this movie is not as "rebelious" as Takahata's Hols prince of the sun (1968), but neither is as optimistic. Also, it is frequently compared with the live action movie based on the same novel and made by master filmmaker Kenji Mizoguchi: Sanshô Dayû (1954), one of the greatest movies of all time (in any language): so I think is quite unfair to compare that with this very nice piece of animation. I love it, Hope you do too.
(by pelida77)
5/5 RAR partsAVI / 796 MB / 1h 28m / Audio: Jap - Ita / Subtitles: English (SRT) & Esp
Video: MPEG-4 / 640x272 / 926 Kbps / 29.970 fps / 0.178 Qf
Audio: MP3 / 44.1 KHz / 128 Kbps.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Maybe you only need subtitles; I made my very own SRT, they are rather messy, but here they are:
English Subtitles SRT
Subtitulos Espanol
Cuando un honesto gobernador es acusado de un
crimen que no cometió, sus tierras le serán confiscadas y se le separará de su
familia. Sus hijos, los hermanos Zushio y Anju deberán crecer de golpe para
hacer frente a las vicisitudes de su destino.
/// Compárese esta tragedia familiar
con el resto de las animaciones del mundo en la época y se podrá atisbar algo
de la inmensa audacia de Toei Dōga. Sus películas son fábulas dirigidas a un
público adulto (aquí tenemos esclavitud, prostitución y hasta un velado
suicidio). Está basado en una novela de Ogai Mori (1862-1922): Sanshō Dayū (de
la cual se hizo también una película en vivo, el clásico de Kenji Mizoguchi).
La música es notable en esta, especialmente hermosas las canciones de Anju. Parece
un drama costumbrista en un escenario bucólico, pero en la segunda mitad se
vuelca por entero al Fantasy. El mejor ejemplo de esto es el duelo entre Zushio
y el Bakemono (una especie de Yōkai), un espíritu que posee la capacidad de
transformarse en otra cosa. Un detalle interesante es como las canciones y los
sueños son premonitorios en este animé. En Estados Unidos fue estrenada en
glorioso Cinemascope. (por pelida77)
Ok!!! so Anju To Zushio Maru is back online. Let's hope it will stay that way. Enjoy!
ReplyDeletemuchas gracias
ReplyDeleteIncreíble e invaluable aporte...¡gracias!
ReplyDeleteSuch a good with with some ugly stereotypes, if you look at the evil men, I've seen stereotypes but the ones in this film are the most ridiculous I've seen in years. Why make half of the people lighter than the others? Why make the evil men with light brownish skin? Why make Gonroku's face look like an ape's? It's an enchanting yet messed up film I mean wtf would they want Anju to let Zushio escape and then drown herself?
ReplyDeleteCause it was the 60's (close to the 50's really) and they didn't knew better... yeah we got some stereotypes here, but nothing as ugly as lets say Little Black Sambo or sthg like that... The drowning scene is following the novel (and the movie); she committed suicide by drowning; cause they'll probably torture her to find where Zushio is (or maybe blind her as with her mother), that's the idea here... sort of... She can't follow Zushio cause she's a woman. Of course that's terrible, but then again it was the 60's in a patriarchal society. Just look at the movies this days (21th century!): women are depicted like dumb sexual objects...
DeleteThank you, i spend almost all day looking for this film :)
ReplyDelete