Life and death according to Kendo A film by Kenji Misumi based on Yukio Mishima’s novel The Sword.
A film about honor, dignity and the true samurai spirit.
Tokyo. University, /not said which / at the university Kendo club.
One of the best students in the class, Jiro Kokubu, Reizo Kitikawa, strives for perfection of body and spirit. In connection with the upcoming national championship in Kendo, he is appointed senior.
Another Kagawa student, Hisaya Morisige, is almost equal in skill to Kokube. And in order to become the best in his business, he persuades his girlfriend Yuki, / Noriko Sengoku / to seduce Kagawa. As a result of the adventure, Yuki herself fell in love with Kagawa.
Before the championship, students under the leadership of Kagawa go to a remote island.
I will not reveal the intrigue, I will only say that the sword will be stained with blood. Not fake, real, human.
We, brought up a little in other historical realities and cultural traditions seem a little frivolous Eastern life philosophy. Well, as a sport, you can understand, or as exotic, or karate, but when it comes further, and even as a way of life, wild. It is savage, according to our European conceptions, in our civilized time, to cut one's own stomach to prove one's right. And not even because it hurts painfully, but because issues can and should be solved differently. And the manifestation of strength in the deprivation of life, another question, perhaps just a manifestation of weakness. Let it not be physical, moral, / this issue is addressed among others in the film /.
So weak or strong? Let's try to understand from the point of view of an ordinary person, at one time a little interested in culture, both West and East.
A person lives in the world, at first playful, then gets older, tries to find his place in the world, sets goals for himself, moves towards these goals, sweeps away the unnecessary, makes mistakes, gets disappointed, gets ready to rise and move on. Afterwards they will say he found his meaning in life, he lived his life with meaning.
But a person can set false goals for himself, he can work all his life like a hard labor, but at the same time move in the wrong direction, into meaninglessness. His actions will also affect those around him. Maybe after his death, no one will say anything good, /maybe someone will regret it in a purely human way / but life will be lost.
Life has to be managed properly. It's really art.
Life moves quickly, it only seems that all life is ahead, just began to think seriously and caught himself on what is mostly behind.
I wrote this about a man, no matter where he lives in Europe, or Asia, in past times, or in the present, there are some things that, anywhere in the world, at any time, are unchanged. But that's not all. Man lives in society. In a society of your kind. By the laws of this society. According to moral laws as well. According to laws, honor, dignity, where the words conscience and love should not be empty words. It shouldn't be.
So, what are your life goals, if you want to go ahead, make money? I will not say that the goal is noble, (noble people in millionaires rarely get out), troublesome yes. But suppose you managed, having preserved your honor and not compromised your conscience, (although this is impossible in principle) to earn a million.
What's next? Oh, that was just the first million. I earned the second, third, billion.
What's next? What's next? You're gonna go with it. I do not mean the material, but the spiritual. The word soul. What you put your soul into. Money? So I didn't put it in, I put it in. That's what I laid down.
Why I say money, well, suppose you have other goals, for example, painting, or music, or sports, if you approach it correctly. You have to live on something.
It's good to live even better.
But to live well and to live correctly, is not the same thing.
I will not say that we do not have honest people, nor will I say that everyone in Japan lives by the law of honor. Sometimes in Japan, honest, decent people do harakiri. We also have cases, /rarely, but it happens / that their rightness is proved by suicide, / other ways, the result is the same /.
This is certainly not a topic of conversation that, for ethical reasons, one would like to address. But as far as I'm concerned. What pushes for a radical decision, apparently, first of all, in the disappointment of those whom he believed, in the collapse of ideals, in the realization of the meaninglessness of what he considered the most important in life, and a little in the desire to prove to himself that it is impossible to live like this.
As for all this, people are always like this, whether you are or not. They are mostly obsessed with themselves, they are not interested in what you want to say to them, they are vengeful for trifles, envious, petty in thoughts and desires.
Ideals and worse, someone you think is ideal, an ordinary person, with all the inherent human weaknesses and shortcomings. It is better to consider him an ordinary person if you become a friend.
I understood the meaninglessness of what I thought was important, so what if you consider it unimportant now, that's all the matter.
If you want to prove it to yourself, prove it to yourself. And if you're not here, why do you need your evidence?