Japanese Cinema

Jidaigeki 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 Kōmon 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 shinchū 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

• Ōedo happyaku yachō: "The eight hundred neighborhoods of Edo"

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