Sawdust spills as sculptor slays samurai, in four-minute stop-motion scene feat. puppets made of wood | HIDARI

2 comments

1. More than 2.5 million views on YouTube since its March 8 upload:^1,2

   >“[‘HIDARI’ is] a thing of imagination, brought to life in a magical way,” Masashi Kawamura, the film’s director and scriptwriter, told Nikkei Asia in a recent interview.

   >“Stop-motion with this type of camera motion and action hasn’t been done before, [and] on top of the fact that everything is wooden … I hope that adds a little flair.”

   >The film is certainly not short of panache. The combination of sleek, stop-motion-fueled action, punchy dialogue and a catchy soundtrack melding hip-hop and traditional shamisen string music makes for mesmerizing viewing.

   >In Japanese tradition, Hidari is believed to have been the mastermind behind some of the country’s most famous Edo-period carvings.

   >A wooden sleeping cat that sits atop the 17th-century Toshogu Shrine in Nikko, Tochigi prefecture — the final resting place of Tokugawa Ieyasu, Japan’s first shogun (military dictator) — is perhaps the carpenter’s most well-known work.

   >Legend has it that animals carved by Hidari had the capacity to come to life, but beyond historical anecdotes and fairy tales, there is no evidence that the sculptor was real.

   ^1 Alice French (14 May 2023), “Japanese stop-motion film brings ‘wooden’ samurai to life”, https://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Arts/Japanese-stop-motion-film-brings-wooden-samurai-to-life

   ^2 teamhidari (8 Mar. 2023), “HIDARI (Pilot Film) – The stop-motion samurai film”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpefYPLH67A

2. wow o_O what a beautiful thing I almost missed out on! thanks for the post