Trivia / Samurai Fiction

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• All There in the Manual: The producers published a photo book with behind the scenes material and impromptu photo-shoots done by the production photographer and even the director — who also posted some on his own on his website in a form of a production diary.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Unemployment as being Older Than Print — The presence of "yakuza" and gambling so early as the 1696, but by then, the Tokugawa shogunate had been in control of the country for about most of that century, it started a period of peace that only suffered minor disruptions throughout. However, one of these disruptional factors were the taxes that made major parts of the society poorer if they happened to have been unnasociated with a clan... basically everyone except a very few. This period also created the "ronin" — samurai that literally were let go or chose to leave because their clan might not have had the capacity or need to keep them on retainer since feudal borders were set and border disputes would of bought all the other clans upon the disrupting one. Strangely, the "ninja" are somewhat of an exception, but since their numbers started becoming "ronins" themselves even earlier, primarily because there was no more need for a warrior with a specialization. This also explains one of the major turning points in ninja history though, Samurai Shinobi becoming less samurai and more the legendary ninja associated with being non-samurai warriors.
• Author Appeal:
  • Zen philosophy — because that one hand gesture of plea from Mizoguchi toward Kazamatsuri is not there by happenstance. Nor is Heishiro's father's name being Kanzen.
  • Rock-and-Roll or Music in general — The soundtrack for this film as well as the director making two musical oriented documentaries some time after this.
  • Thematic montage — of which the intro is the only instance here but the director had made several throughout his career and would go on to make several documentaries.
• Author Tract: There are non-violent solutions to problems.
• Broke the Rating Scale: And positively so, because according to many reviewers and critics, this film qualifies as a — "Refusal to Rate", "Scores don't apply here" or "Impossible to Rate" because it is the best example of a Jidaigeki and a Comedy that it seems there are no precedence for up until this work released.
• Bit Character: Gosuke, played by, later and often Type Cast as The Ditz, actor Hiroshi Kanbe.
• The Cameo: Musician Fumiya Fujii appears as Ryunosuke Kuzumi, the samurai Mizoguchi fatally defeats in combat. Fumiya's younger brother, Naoyuki Fujii also makes an appearance as Shintaro Suzuki.
• Doing It for the Art: In 1997-1998, when this film was produced and released, the Jidaigeki genre was in a steady decline in popularity, with most works predominantly being made for TV or made dramas. So it was quite a treat for everyone involved to do an original Comedy take that played well as a Samurai Fiction.
• Fanservice: At the end, the narration points out that Red Shadow has quit the ninja and became a maid for Koharu, showing her character in a kimono. The actress is played by photo model Akiko Monou in her first role. And the production photo book contains as many photos with her as there are of main cast, Koharu's Tamaki Ogawa.
• Goroawase Number: The year the story takes place, 1696, has several interpretations:
  • Imekura — are establishments that conduct elaborate and fetishized costume role playing, in an entertaining and erotic manner, for paying customers.
  • One Ero-Guro — as in 1, Ero from erotic and Guro from grotesque. A type of work that showcases grotesque imagery for erotic purposes.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The film itself is sparsely available on DVD, not to mention the extra "Making of" DVD, the photo-book and soundtrack album.
• Memorial Character: Kurosawa Tadasuke — for Akira Kurosawa, the famed director had died one month prior to this film's release. The character named after him also dies partway through the film and he has a stick of incense lit up for him by Koharu and Mizoguchi and Heishiro sheds some tears some time after noticing it.
• Not Your Daddy's X: The film had several such remarks made about it in its advertising:
  • The director, by that point only having made music videos, was advertised as "Kurosawa of the MTV Generation".
  • The film itself: "COOL! FUNKY! PEACE!".
  • The trailer is very animated as if it is a buddy cop comedy or even action film, the music is very... funky with the music, it closes with a trailer voice-over reading the title card and one of Kagemaru dropping from the ceiling, gaining his balance, and saying "You called sir?", as if all of it, film, music, everything was a custom order.
• Officially Shortened Title: Of sorts, it is commonly known as SF: Episode 1 — it being one of several films and shorts, all prefixed with "SF".
• Production Posse: Director Hiroyuki Nakano has worked again with Tomoyasu Hotei, Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Tamaki Ogawa and Akiko Monou.
• Referenced by...: This... might need it's own page...
  • Quentin Tarantino, mostly in Kill Bill:
    • The intro sequence (and poster) in black and red with the samurai doing sword drills/kata was referenced in Kill Bill during The Bride's fight with The Crazy 88, with some of her kills made behind some of the shoji walls and shown in shadowy silhouette form in black and blue — in fact, the entire sequence surrounding it was made in black and white to punctuate with colors. Later, The bride is shown training with Pai Mei with a red background from a sunset.
    • The black and red during kills was similarly referenced and repurposed to show The Bride remembering previous scenes of violence done to her.
    • The Sword that has bought the story into motion was referenced and repurposed so The Bride would seek one from a master craftsman... who also has a Zen philosophy about his craft and reasons to have given it up.
    • Lady Okatsu introduction, walking on a very long and narrow table and going up against some rowdy samurai customers that have their swords out was referenced through O-Ren-Ishii's swift jump and run on a similarly long and narrow table and cutting off one of her disgruntled underling's head off. Of worthy note is that one Extreme Close-Up of Lady Okatsu's bare foot might of been the thing that sold the deal for Quentin Tarantino. Lady Okatsu's actor, Mari Natsuki, also had a villainous part in Death Shadows, named Oren.
  • The soundtrack was similarly enhanced with a multitude of non-diegetic pop rock songs, especially Hotei's "Battle Without Honor or Humanity".
    • In Ghost of Tsushima, the developers included the Kurosawa mode that is in black and white, this is an interesting choice because in honor of the famed director, Samurai Fiction was also made in black and white.
• Shout Outs:
  • To Pulp Fiction.
  • To Jidaigeki samurai films in general, most of the tropes commonly associated with the genre are Played for Laughs specifically to add Comedy into the mix.
  • To Kenji Mizoguchi, by naming the Deuteragonist after him.
  • To Akira Kurosawa, by including roles for Those Two Guys and making one of them named after him. Also, making the film in black and white.
  • To Toshiro Mifune, by borrowing a real sword from the actor's collection and making it a McGuffin that the story revolves around.
  • To both Kurosawa and Mifune, who passed away a year apart during the production of this film, done by making The Sword about 80 years since the clan received it, that is to approximately account for the 88 and 77 years since Kurosawa's and Mifune's birthdays at that time in 1998.
  • To The Sword of Doom's Ryunosuke Tsukue by making Rannosuke Kazamatsuri share some character traits, like the Thousand-Yard Stare and the commitment to be a Master Swordsman.
• Stunt Casting: For Tomoyasu Hotei, who portrays Kazamatsuri, because he is very tall in stature and also made the soundtrack for the film — which itself is noteworthy for being modern and rock and roll like, making people, who don't know about the musician and this circumstance, dis-consider it as entirely being made original for the film. Hotei even wrote a song and made a music video, in character, during production.
• Technology Marches On:
  • The film was shot on, well, film, um, celluloid. However once it begun post-production, it was digitized for editing as well as soundtrack work since Hotei by then had adopted digital workflows in creating his music, especially for the electronic elements of it.
  • Credits at the end mention the use of Inferno compositing work done on the film — this was a software primarily meant for compositing visual effects, however, at that time it also introduced some color grading and non-linear editing among its features, considering the credits do not mention AVID, it is highly likely the producers used Inferno for all of it: color conversion, touchups, editing, etc.
  • The released DVD even provides among the medium's first historical instance of Bonus Content, being the first worldwide instance for a Jidaigeki film.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Among the film's DVD Bonus Contents, there are a few scenes from the final movie but instead they are in color — this posits the possibility that the final product could of been entirely in color too but was converted to black and white in post-production as an homage to Akira Kurosawa. Indeed, certain scenes lack the typical contrast in shades of black and white usually associated with the single silver halide crystals layer of BW photography film.
  • A prequel with Kanzen and Kagemaru and the history of The Sword; A sequel with Falcon and Red Shadow and maybe a romance between them; A sequel involving Kazamatsuri, because this film leaves open the possibility that he might not have died. These could all have been possibilities in the eyes of many fans — even after Red Shadow was made.

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