Buddha (1961)

Directed by

***Buddha*** (釈迦, *Shaka*) is a 1961 Japanese drama film directed by Kenji Misumi and Stars Machiko Kyo and Kojiro Hongo. It was released to Japanese theaters on November 1, 1961 Distributed by Daiei Film.

## Plot

in the 5th century (BC) in India . Kapilavastu in Shakya of the prince , Siddha prince is born. Twenty years later, Siddha defeats his cousin Diva Datta at a son-in-law's martial arts competition held at Sparf Castle, and welcomes his wife, the prestigious Princess Yasyodarahime . However, the circumstances that was too blessed myself, Siddha suffering in impermanence of the world the identity discrimination produce is finally out on a journey priest to.

Diva, who has an evil love for Yashodaler who mourns the priesthood of Siddha, approaches Yashodaler one night, pretending to be Siddha, and commits her. Yashodara commits suicide and Diva is banished from the Shakya.

Through the wilderness and primeval forest, the prince's wandering journey continues, before he enters a six-year meditation line under the Bodhi tree . Various from the forest Mara ( Mara appears), enlightenment and seduce prince trying to interfere with, come attack. However, with the help of the village woman Yasa, she overcame the death of Yashodara and finally became enlightened. Yasa is Taishakuten is a figure of temporary, Prince is "here Buddha became".

People from all over the country come to gather at the Buddha's permission. On the other hand, since Datta is to defeat the Buddha, Shurada ascetic wearing a supernatural powers under and Torii' to Ajase prince of Madaka countries, to build a major temple city of Brahmin, which enshrined the god Indra, persecuted the Buddhists , Was executed.

Eventually, Prince Ajase, who was suspicious of Datta's actions, was taught by Buddha and left Datta. Knowing this, Datta puts on Prince Ajase's regicide and declares that he will become King Madaka at the built Great Temple of Indra . Trying to sacrifice a Buddhist at the stake.

At this time, the wrath of the Buddha finally called a miracle, a severe earthquake and a crack in the ground struck the Great Temple, the statue of the god collapsed immediately, and Datta was swallowed by the crack in the ground. The Buddha's charity is extended to Datta, who admits his blame and asks for forgiveness, and saves his life.

In the years that followed, Buddha's teachings of charity were widespread throughout the country. The Buddha was about to die, but the teachings were engraved in the people and passed on forever.

## Cast

* Kojiro Hongo
* Yumeji Tsukioka as Takushira
* Kojiro Nakamura as King Ashoka

## Staff

* Production: Masaichi Nagata
* Planning: Hisashi Okuda
* Screenplay: Fuji Yahiro

Main story
* Director: Kenji Misumi
* Photo: Hiroshi Imai , Kazuo Miyagawa
* Music: Akira Ifukube (Conductor: Jin Ueda , Music Performance: Tokyo Symphony Orchestra )
* Art director: Kisaku Ito
* Art: Akira Naito
* Recording: Masao Ohsumi
* Lighting: Kenichi Okamoto
* Edited by: Kanji Tatsumi

Special effects
* Photo: Toru Matoba , Jishi Makiura
* Assistant Director: Yoshiyuki Kuroda
* Lighting: Ichiji Shimazaki
* Art: Takesaburo Watanabe
* Video composition: Tomio Sagisu , P Productions
* Picture composition: Yoshio Watanabe
* Special modeling: Fuminori Ohashi

## Production

The film was first planned in 1959 by Hisashi Okuda.

### Commentary

A film adaptation of the life of Buddha , the founder of Buddhism , by collecting the stars of Daiei at that time . The total production cost is said to be 500 million yen  at that time . The nominal price is 700 million yen  .

At the time of the production of this work, the Hollywood movie industry in the United States produced a blockbuster historical drama movie with " Ben-Hur " of the previous year, " Spartakus " released in the same year, and 70mm film, which was a hot topic. In 1960, the year before, color TV broadcasting started in Japan, and the number of TV reception contracts exceeded 3 million units. Before the arrival of the full-scale TV era, all Japanese movie production companies were based on the principle of masterpieces. He began to seek a way out of the double-barreled box office. Under these circumstances, Daiei was ahead of Shochiku for all-natural colorization and Toei for cinemascope , and it was a long-cherished wish to produce a 70mm movie ahead of other companies.

Masaichi Nagata, the president of Daiei, known as an enthusiastic Nichiren sect , later became " Daimajin " (1966, 1966) as a historical drama spectacle of Buddhist subjects following " Nichiren to Mongko Dairai " (1958, directed by Kunio Watanabe ) . Focusing on the proposal " **Shakaden / Hikari is from the East** " submitted by Hisashi Okuda, who plans (Director Kimiyoshi Yasuda ) . Based on this, in order to portray the life of "Shaka" as a 70mm large-screen movie, he spearheaded the production of this work and ordered it.

This work, which was officially decided to be produced in September 1960, became Japan's first 70mm film movie, which was released under the name of "70mm Super Tech Nirama" and can be said to be a symbol of Japanese film masterpieces . As for the shooting camera, the Vistavision camera purchased from Paramount Pictures of the United States was remodeled so that the "anamorphic lens" could be attached by requesting London Technicolor for this work, and it became a "super technirama type" camera. Things were used.

Although the "Super Tech Nirama" method is labeled as "70mm", the shooting itself uses a 35mm Vistavision camera and is printed on 70mm film when creating a screening print, so Todd AO and Super Panavision or, Ultra-Panavision (MGM camera 65) , such as, it is necessary to distinguish the system to shoot using a 65mm negative. However, since VistaVision is a high-quality format that uses two frames of the 35mm standard for one frame, there is no doubt that Super Technirama boasts the high image quality unique to large-format negatives like other 70mm formats.

Remodeled this 70mm for Vista Vision cameras and photographic equipment for the purpose of this work is, the next 1962 movie " World War II and the Yuri Hime troops " ( Finance movie production and Daiei distribution, Komori white Director) disbursed in the shooting of ing. This is Masakazu Nagata and Mitsugu Finance that was realized from both the President was personally acquainted  .

The shooting start date was decided by Nagata's will on April 8, 1961, the birthday of Buddha, and cranked in. Nagata invested all his resources into Daiei Kyoto Studio and built a vast open set in Fukuchiyama City , Kyoto Prefecture . We faced this with an all-star cast that attracted actors from a wide range of fields such as Kabuki and Shingeki , as well as our own stars .

The spectacle image drawn on the 70 mm large screen has a lot of special effects, and in this work, in addition to the birth of Prince Siddharda, miraculous scenes such as the prince bouncing a bow and arrow are expressed by animation and drawing composition, and the number is 37 cuts. It extends to  . I had worked on the drawing synthesis and this animation, video company in the previous year 1960 P Productions was launched the Soji Ushio and (Tomio Saginosu) Yoshio Watanabe was  . Since the studio in Kyoto did not trust the animation at all, the scene where the flowers bloom all at once due to the miracle of Buddha was originally planned to prepare artificial flowers with a motor and shoot them mechanically.  . But this didn't work, and the video was introduced  .

Watanabe was in charge of "drawing synthesis," which synthesizes elaborate drawings into actual scenes. This "drawing composition" was taken by a technique called "biosynthesis" in which the film once shot was not developed , but was rewound in the film magazine to the position where the composition started, and the drawn picture was imprinted and synthesized. This work of measuring the beginning and end of the cut with a stopwatch and rewinding the film to the start of synthesis is done with complete intuition and skillful Watanabe craftsmanship, and if it fails I had to reassemble a huge set for 70mm on another day, and although several takes were taken just in case, the burden of responsibility was unusual and I was sent from Tokyo to Kyoto with Watanabe. Ushio, who took the picture, said he couldn't sleep for many nights due to the pressure, and said, "I thought I'd go back to Tokyo on the way . "

At that time, there was no 70mm film processor in Japan, and due to patents , the film was airlifted to the United Kingdom , developed in the London Technicolor laboratory for about a week, and then airlifted back to Japan.  . In case of emergency, Nagata insures the same amount as the production cost for this print air transportation. In addition, the projector of 70mm film is "of Osaka OS theater because there was not only", staff from Kyoto to OS theater after the show filming had to be carried out the preview in person on the bus  . Therefore, the hard work of the shooting staff was not trivial because one NG caused enormous damage. Until his later years, Ushio said, "I still dream of the throbbing and praying feelings in the location bus at that time . " When this work was successfully completed and the preview was performed, Ushio was praised by Toho 's master Eiji Tsuburaya special effects director, saying, "Well, he fused the video and live-action special effects."  .

Akira Ifukube was in charge of the music in the play musical. The recording took place in Kyoto, the tape was airlifted to England and mixed at "London RCA". According to Ifukube, he composed the wet scene  in a quiet tone, but it was loud in the film that came back from England. About this, Ifukube grinned, " I wondered how vulgar Anglo-Saxon was."

The "Mara" who try to prevent the Buddha's line are by Fuminori Ohashi, a sculptor in Kyoto . Some of Minikukai of Mara that appeared in countless, Ohashi has worked in the same Daiei Kyoto "Akado Suzunosuke third of Birdman," " Akado Suzunosuke thunder's Kurokumotani" (1958) A modified version of the headgear of "Birdman" and "Thunderman" is used.

Ryosaku Takayama, who participated in the modeling, has participated in many special effects works of Daiei such as " Daimajin " since this work  .

In the special effects group, Tatsuyuki Yokota  of the Kyoto studio is inviting Toru Matoba of the Tokyo studio to Kyoto because it is out of hand. The storyboard is drawn by Matoba, and Yoshiyuki Kuroda is the assistant, and all the special effects scenes are shot by Matoba . The title credits the names of Yokota and Seiichi Aisaka as special effects staff, but in reality they were both untouched.

Kazuo Miyagawa was in charge of shooting the open set in Fukuchiyama, and Matoba said, "I think that is the best cut in'Shaka'."

The art director will be Kisaku Ito, who worked on the Japanese- French joint film " Typhoon Over Nagasaki " (1956, directed by Yves Ciampi ) and "Kurofune" (1959, directed by John Huston ) . The art setting was done with the utmost care in fusion. The vast open set in the play cut down the mountain on the grounds of the Self-Defense Forces training ground in Fukuchiyama, Kyoto Prefecture, and was assembled at that time for 70 million yen  , and the scale is unprecedented in the history of Japanese movies of 20,000 m2. It was. In the set, a road with a width of 10m was built in front of the 28m statue of Indra, and five temples and a 60m bridge were built on both sides over 40 days. 15,000 extras were mobilized for the temple construction laborer.

Since the scene of the climax natural disaster is a scale that cannot be retaken, Misumi issues a command with a mobile microphone and turns five cameras all at once to shoot this.

This completed work has been well received by Western buyers, and the story of overseas entertainment has been gathered before the release, bringing a huge foreign currency of 700,000 dollars (at that time) to Daiei. On the other hand, for the reasons described in the next section, complaints have been gathered for movies in some screening countries.

However, this resulted in a promotional effect before the box office as "Japan's first 70mm blockbuster movie". As soon as this work was released, it was a big hit that broke the box office record in Japan with the release of the road show from November. In addition, the road show and public release that spans the following year will eventually make it a huge hit with a distribution income of over 700 million yen , sweeping the awards of each movie category for that year.

## Differences from historical facts

Initially, this work was planned to be filmed on a large scale overseas. However, at the planning stage, India , Ceylon ( Sri Lanka ), Burma ( Myanmar ), Thailand , Pakistan , Laos and six countries with many Buddhists or Buddhist ties "defile Buddha and insult Buddhists." In response to the fierce protest, he was requested to cut the unreasonable part, and the overseas location was canceled.

The most problematic part is that Yashodara is raped by Diva Datta . Fuji Yahiro, who was in charge of the script , described this part as "only by overcoming the despair of being robbed of a loved one can we reach the height of tolerance and mercy." Despite the corrections, the "rape" sequence itself remained.

Since there are various theories, it is difficult to consider what is "historical fact", but the part that was not replaced is mainly different from what is generally known.

* Siddha's mother Maya survives seven days after Siddha's birth without dying.
* A child is born to Siddha, and a priest who leaves the house later commits suicide after being raped by Diva Datta without having a child .
* The episode of Prince Kunara ( English version ) more than 100 years after the death of Buddha is supposed to be alive.

## Release

The film was re-released in Japan in 1973 by Daiei Film and Nikkatsu.

### U.S. release

*Buddha* was originally released theatrically in the United States by Lopert Pictures Corporation. on July, 3 1963. and was re-released between 1970-1972 as "***The Life of Budda***".

### Argentina release

*Buddha* was originally released theatrically on 22 January 1964 in Argentina as ***Buda***.

### Mexican release

*Buddha* was originally released theatrically on 5 November 1964 in Mexico.

### Turkish release

*Buddha* was originally released theatrically on 21 December 1965 in Turkey.

### Brazilian release

*Buddha* was originally released theatrically in 1965 in Brazil as ***Buda.***

### England release

*Buddha* was originally released theatrically in England in 1963 as "***The Life of Budda"*** and under the tagline of Stands alone! [*citation needed*]

## Awards

* "Japan Film Technology Award" (shooting, lighting, special technology, art, recording)
* "Japan Film Technology Award Special Award" ( Kenji Misumi )
* "6th Movie Day Special Achievement Award" ( Kisaku Ito )
* " 16th Mainichi Film Concours " Recording Award ( Masao Ohsumi )
* "Blue Ribbon Technology Award"
* " Kinema Junpo Special Award" ( Masaichi Nagata )

## References

This is a list of references for **Buddha (1961)**. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]

1. ↑ "Fifty Years of Nikkatsu" Nikkatsu, 1962. ASIN B000JAJRVY . It is introduced as an example of a 70-wear movie of another company ( Daiei ) .
2. ↑ https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/釈迦 (映画)
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Daiei's Original Buddha film a classic un-remade film that is Japanese!. on Kyoto Diary Flower
4. ↑ Company(s) info. on IMDB
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Release Info. on IMDB