The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 6 | Issue 1 | Article ID 2622 | Jan 01, 2008

1

The Last Samurai

David McNeill

The Last Samurai

David McNeill

Ken Watanabe is back from a year of self-imposed retirement after his acclaimed roles inLast Samurai and Letters from Iwo Jima. Hetalks about his new movie project, his life out ofthe limelight and the dangers of Asianstereotypes.

Ken Watanabe’s latest film project opens with

an image of an Arctic bear resurfacing into thebrilliant spring sunlight after months livingunderground. It’s tempting to see the scene asa metaphor for a career that has alternatedbetween stretches of intense, highly acclaimedwork and long periods of hibernation.

The 48-year-old was famously forced into semi-retirement by a leukemia diagnosis in 1989 justtwo years after the NHK samurai seriesDokuganryu Masamune launched him into theacting firmament. He fought the disease intoremission but it returned in 1994, leaving agaping, five-year hole in his resume.

He is now reemerging, blinking in the mediaspotlight after another year away from thecameras – this time self-imposed -- following astring of high-profile Hollywood performancesthat have made him perhaps the best known,most respected Asian actor on the planet.In The Last Samurai (2003), Memoirs of aGeisha (2005) and Letters from Iwo Jima(2006), Watanabe brought charisma and depthto roles that in less capable hands were ripe forstereotype: a recalcitrant Meiji-era warrior, amiddle-aged businessman and the doomedWorld War Two general Tadamichi Kuribayashi.

APJ | JF 6 | 1 | 0

2

The Last Samurai

His rich, soulful turn in Edward Zwick’sBushido sword-fest outshone Hollywood’sbrightest star, Tom Cruise, and earned him anOscar nomination for best supporting actor. Heis the heart and soul of Letters, a movie widelydubbed a masterpiece. Even his phoned-inperformance in the exquisitely packaged butslight Memoirs, and a cameo in BatmanReturns were noted by critics.

Letters from Iwo Jima

All of which made his next career move appearodd. Watanabe returned to Japan to makeMemories of Tomorrow, a grueling, distinctlyun-Hollywood drama about a Salary-man’sdescent into Alzheimer’s disease. He brieflymade the headlines again when he marriedactress Kaho Minami. But since then, publicsightings have been as rare as that Arctic bear.

Where has he been?

“How can I explain this?” says the 48-year-oldNiigata native as he struggles for words. “WithLetters, then Memories, I reached a sort ofturning point in my acting. I had poured somuch of myself into those movies and I reallyhad no idea where to go from there. I was ofcourse offered scripts but nothing that movedme at all in the same way. A lot of peopleadvised me to go ahead and make a movieanyway. But in the end I didn’t make one fornearly a year.”

Tanned, fit and impeccably turned out in atailored Italian suit for our interview in acentral Tokyo hotel, the time off seems to havedone him the world of good. “I said to my wife,‘I’ve haven’t done anything in a year, I wonderif it’s okay,’” he recalls, smiling. “But she said

APJ | JF 6 | 1 | 0

3

‘What are you talking about, you’re living yourlife.’ And it was a kind of relief to realize thatthis is what life is: spending time with yourfamily and other normal things.”

The project that brings him back fromhibernat ion i s P lanet Ear th by BBCdocumentary maker Alastair Fothergill, thecreative force behind the huge worldwide hitDeep Blue. A filmic plea to rescue the dyingplanet from environmental destruction, Earthopens with a haunting shot of that polar bearsearching for footing on melting ice. Watanabe,who narrates the movie, recalls what he sawwhen he spent a month in the Arctic.

“The first dawn after winter up there issupposed to be mid-February but the sunappeared to rise two weeks earlier. When Iasked local people about it they said ‘therehave been huge changes here in the last fewyears.’ The weather is changing here too. Sowhen I was asked to do the narration and Ithought I’ve got to do this. It’s so important.”

“I mean, mankind has lived for such a shorttime on the planet, and maybe we don’t havemuch longer to go. But we can still help bydoing even small things. Use water andelectricity carefully, for example.”

It’s a long way from the Hollywood coalface,but Watanabe thinks the older he gets the moreinclined he is to seek out work that “sayssomething” to the audience. He denies, though,that stardom has turned him against the lure ofBig Movies. “Not at all,” he says. “It dependson the production. If the script is good, castand director is good, I’ll go anywhere.

“You have to ask, what is Hollywood todayanyway? I mean, there is a physical place bythat name and a different aesthetic and scale,but movies are no longer made there. There isso much collaboration now. The money cancome from Japan, the movie might have aKorean director and be made in the US; it isnot about where you make the movie anymore.”

The big difference he says is how much wastethere is on a US set. “They shoot a lot more andthen select the best material. But once you getto the set there’s not much difference betweena Japanese or foreign movie. There aredirectors who like to do a lot of takes andothers like [Clint] Eastwood [Director of Lettersfrom Iwo Jima] who usually says ‘one will do.’”

A smart, erudite man, Watanabe is acutelyaware of the dangers of cultural typecastinginside the Hollywood machine. In the DVDvoiceover for The Last Samurai, director Zwickexplains that his star worked so hard becausehe “knew in some fundamental way” that theimages of Japanese actors for decades were“two-d imens iona l a t best and o f tencaricatured.”

As great an actor as he is, he has made hisname playing roles within the very restrictedHollywood template for Asian men: warriors,generals, businessmen and sinister Orientalbad-guys. Is it possible to break out of thistemplate?

“Well, I’d like to play ordinary people too andwe’re always developing such scripts.” But heacknowledges it is difficult to find roles that

APJ | JF 6 | 1 | 0

4

don’t condescend. “About half the scripts sentto me feature characters I just can’t identifywi th , part icu lar ly one-d imens ionalbusinessmen, or if it’s a comedy some absurd10-year-old Japanese stereotype. There’s nopoint in getting mad about it; it’s just the waythings are. But I want to positively challengesuch stereotypes.”

That sometimes means challenging the directorand the script, he explains, even afteraccepting a role. “Oh yes, there are things inscripts that you cannot let go by. In Letters,there were times when I told Eastwood ‘this isjust not believable,’” he says, adding that hemade daily suggestions and asked the directorto make sure that costumes, props and setswere accurate. “The story had to be true, butEastwood is not someone I had to fight withbecause he always listened carefully andrespected my opinions, right up to the end ofthe movie.”

He says the most serious script dispute onLetters was the death scene. “We discussed itfor weeks and I disagreed with the originalversion. Some people felt he should havecommitted seppuku, but I felt that beautifiedhis death. Being the man he was, having askedso much of his men, he would have fought untilhe had erased himself. When nothing was left,he would have accepted death. I felt that verystrongly.”

Watanabe always chooses scripts “on instinct”and claims it has rarely let him down. He sayshe immediately knew Iwo Jima and Memorieswere special, but once he accepted the partshad to dig deep into himself, a process he foundexhausting. “I can’t become another person, nomatter how much make-up I wear. Somethingof your own past, your experiences andpersonality always comes out in the role andthat makes acting very risky. You’re exposed.You always wonder if you can pull it off.”

His job outside Japan is made harder by the

language barrier. Watanabe studied Englishintensely for Last Samurai and Memoirs.“Dialogue itself is not so difficult, butunderstanding the meaning behind the wordsand what the director and the scriptwriterwants is a challenge.”

Memoirs of a Geisha

The burden of playing Kuribayashi afterKatsumoto in Last Samurai, two signature rolesloaded with historical and political freight andscrutinized in Japan like few films before orsince, added to his exhaustion last year.Watanabe has admitted that he was “nervous”about making Iwo Jima, “a film that was soimportant to my culture.” That the moviegarnered such praise is testament to his hardwork, though some critics didn’t appreciate it.“Doesn’t have much to say, except thatJapanese are human beings too,” wrote one,ignoring what an achievement that was afterdecades of hoary cinematic clichés and banzai-screaming generals.

Watanabe rarely discusses his illness, thoughthose who know him say his on-screen intensityand stillness is partly a product of being soclose to death, and knowing it could comecalling again. He admits to mining hismemories of fighting leukemia when filmingMemories of Tomorrow. “I don’t think youshould show those experiences on screenbecause they’ll take over the character you’replaying. But when I was making the movie, Ibegan to remember.

APJ | JF 6 | 1 | 0

5

Memories of Tomorrow

“When you’re sick, you’re not thinking 24 hoursa day about your suffering, about dying. Youwant to talk and laugh and think about otherthings. In the midst of trying to live your lifenormally, the fear and dread, the realizationthat it might all end, rises up inside of you.That’s what I brought to that movie, although Ididn’t intend to at the start. The director wasgood enough to listen to me and we changedsome scenes.”

The actor who blurs the boundary betweenscreen roles and the guy in the shaving mirroris of course something of a cinematic cliché.Watanabe, who has built a career playingproud, honorable and fatalistic men, seemscloser than most to his cinematic persona. Heis reputed to lead a frugal, strict life, and has areputation for being scrupulously careful andhonest. There is something almost Buddha-likein his stillness and thoughtful, considered

replies. Is he, as some of his cuttings suggest, amodern-day samurai?

“Well, I’d like to live like a simple samurai’slife, with few possessions,” he laughs. But inreality you start to accumulate things in yourlife. I try to differentiate between what I needand don’t need. I talk to my wife and childrenbefore buying things. But I think the samuraisensibility goes deeper: respect for others;using your time carefully; keeping promises. Ithink those are qualities that Japan used tohave but which it is somehow forgetting.They’re important to me.”

Watanabe’s essential seriousness is perhapsone reason why he dismisses the idea that hemight be a sex symbol. “I never understoodthat tag,” he says laughing. I have no sense ofmyself as a sex symbol at all. But the meaningof sex symbol might be a little different inJapan and elsewhere. The Japanese versionseems to come with a stronger emphasis on asort of grown-up or mature male charm. And ifthat’s the case, then I guess I’m happy to hearit.”

Where will he go next? He says he rulesnothing out, even a return to NHK. “I’veworked in TV, theatre and movies so I don’tmind as long as it is a good project with awonderful director and staff. That’s whatmakes it worthwhile getting involved in anyproject.”

David McNeill writes regularly for a number ofpublications including the Irish Times and theChronicle of Higher Education. He is a JapanFocus coordinator.

Published at Japan Focus on January 1, 2008.