REEL JAPAN

SCORE: 10/10

Based on a true story, director Takita Yojiro (DEPARTURES, WHEN THE LAST SWORD IS DRAWN) brings us an absorbing biopic about human perseverance and the struggle for science against ignorance and superstition. Okada Junichi turns in one of his finest performances as Santetsu Yasui, a young man living in the late Edo period whose left-brained skill at board games, puzzles, and mathematics impresses everyone around him. In the first part, Okada acts young, pitching his voice higher, swaddled in ill-fitting clothes that make him look undersized. Gradually, the character matures into the kind of heroic samurai who is willing to stake his life on his mission. His passion and impatience for learning offsets his dry nerdy demeanor perfectly.

Tense games of Igo (an ancient East Asian strategy game consisting of black and white stones on a grid) presage more dangerous combats to come. Will TENCHI deliver the usual swordplay that samurai films all promise? We shall see, but we must also keep an open mind about what constitutes combat: martial, political, and cultural. 

From the start, much is made of the celestial inspiration, indeed the heavenly shape that mathematics and especially geometry impart to puzzles. If we look closely at the narrative we may detect ever-widening circles of relevance: from puzzles to Igo matches to marching across Japan in order to measure the realm. Finally we must solve with Santetsu the grandest problem: tracing Japan’s progress through the cosmos with an accurate calendar. Santetsu must do in a short time what the West has accomplished over centuries (a theme found in many Japanese stories set in the later Meiji era). He will abandon the eight century old Chinese calendar. Appropriately this journey unfolds across all seasons, all weather. Alpine summits and beautiful shrines enchant the eyes. Makeshift observation decks pop up across Japan shielded by the kind of heraldic cloth fencing associated with war camps. 

No less than HisaishiJoe, famous for his many Studio Ghibli films, scores TENCHI. One theme stands out the most, a metronomic march that perfectly matches the precision movements of these samurai scientists as they ambulate across the landscape counting their steps like a primitive sports watch.  

Miyazaki Aoi plays En, the eligible sister of one of Santetsu’s learned friends. Miyazaki and Okada have great chemistry, not surprising considering that they went on to marry in real life. It will have been a huge challenge for the filmmakers to fit this epic journey into the frame of a love story. Did they succeed? 

The always-excellent Sometani Shota shows up as shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna. Controversial actor Ennosuke Ichikawa turns in a fine performance as antisocial math genius Takakazu Seki. Yokoyama You shines as Dosaku, a monk considered the greatest Igo player in Japanese history. Oddly enough, the great Yoshioka Riho appears in her first filmed role as an extra. If you look very closely you might spot her in the crowd waiting for an eclipse of the sun. 

Like all scientists, Santetsu has to slay sacred cows. His fight is not without risk. Born into the peaceful Edo period when the Tokugawa shoguns exercised complete control over regional lords and commoners, Santetsu comes to believe that fresh ideas have been wiped out. Interestingly, it is not the shogunate standing against progress, but the nobles of the Imperial court. Decades later, Japanese reformers would harness imperial power to overthrow the shogunate, but that is a different story. 

Gorgeous cinematography by Hamada Takeshi (DEPARTURES, KUBI) transports us into the era. Ominous eclipses, crows taking flight: the filmmakers transfigure these disturbing tropes to presage not moments of horror but breakthroughs of scientific advancement. 

TENCHI: SAMURAI ASTRONOMER is the most important in a new breed of quirky samurai film. Although long, detailed, and requiring an investment of attention from the audience, it is a superlative film. Like samurai scientist Yasui Santetsu, the filmmakers proved they had “perfect insight” and “perfect vision.”

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