Equally successful was Yoshimura’s 1955 The Beauty and the Dragon (Bijo to Kairyu), a period-film in which the famous Kabuki play Narukami was brought throughly up to date. Somewhat in the manner of Henry V, the film opens with a reconstruction of a classical performance of the play, accurately recreating a historical presentation in the proper style; it then moves, as a film, into a more cinematic interpretation. As in the Olivier movie, the acting style shifts from stage technique to cinema technique, and Yoshimura’s aim, like Olivier’s, was not a total reconstruction of the past but the use of a historically literal presentation as means toward something more modern in conception.Read More »
