Kadokawa's next big thing - Genghis Khan and 3000 real-life Mongolian cavalry

Fresh out of the big success of "YAMATO" to mark his revival from the prison terms, producer Haruki Kadokawa announced his next big project, "Aoki Ookami - Chi Hate Umi Tsukiru Made" (Literal translation:  Blue Wolf - Until the land ends and the sea finishes) about Mongolian hero Genghis Khan （1162-1227), SANSPO reports on Jan. 13.  (You can see a glimpse of magestic Mongolian soldiers on this site.)

The story is based on two popular novels; one is "Blue Wolf" by Yasushi Inoue, one of the modern greats in Japanese literature circle, and another is "Until the land ends and the sea finishes" by Seiichi Morimura, Kadokawa's long-time partner in his famous "novel-movie media mix" strategy.  The director is Shin-ichiro Sawai, another old buddy of Kadokawa in his 80's movies such as "W's tragedy" and "Mahjong".

What is amazing about Kadokawa is that he got this huge team going in less than one month.  He had made up his mind that he would not start the new one until "YAMATO" sails off, so he started working on this project right after the opening of "YAMATO" in Dec. 17.  After that, he lined up the joint production/distribution partner Shochiku, then talked to the ambassador of Mongol to Japan, and got the nod from their government.  Mongolian government not only permitted to shoot the film in their country, but also agreed to provide 3000 of their military personel as the cavalry soldiers in the film, as their country's 800th anniversary event.

Then he got another partnership with Avex, the most powerful music production in J-Pop, who will invest into the film, provide music by one of their artists (including Ayumi Hamazaki, Namie Amuro, Mirai Koda etc.) and cooperate in various other aspects.  As a result, he raised 3 billion yen (approx. $27 mil.), bigger than "YAMATO"'s 2.5 bil, is planning a huge kick-off event in Tokyo, inviting the Prime Minister of Mongol, in February, and will start shooting in June.

Kadokawa says that he will emphasize the women's side of the story within this huge historical/war spectacle, shedding the lights on Genghis Khan's mother, wife and concubine, just as "YAMATO" was also very much told from the women's point of view.

Kadokawa tried to take up "Blue Wolf" back in 1980's, but could not realize due to the political environment. (It is almost hard to remember now, but Mongol was a hard-core socialist bloc around that time, but now the relationship between Mongol and Japan is very good, partially (or largely?) because of the success of the sumo champion Asashoryu from Mongol.)  Currently Kadokawa is working on casting, which is scheduled to be announced at the end of February.

There have been several cross-border all-Asian movies lately, involving Japanese actors and actresses, but most of them are from China and Hong Kong.  I am glad finally that someone starts such a big international project from Japan, and that it is by a maverick-outsider. 

And by the way, I assume the script will be all in Japanese, played by all Japanese cast, altough it is about Mongolian historical hero - won't it be criticized by Mongolian people as being too "Non-Mongolian", a la "Geisha"??? - I wonder.... 

Comments

[suuri]

japanese made "blue wolf" is one of worst movies about Chinggis khaan, i've ever seen. In this movie chingis khaan was shown as arrogant silly samurai, who has no talent on management and leadership among the nomad people. You can not see any Mongol life style and Mongol wariors figure. They should have study Mongols from every direction,and every corner.But i 100 percent support the movie about Mongol invation of japan. There could be a version that Japanese, Mongolian, chinese and Korean make this film jointly. But we need to make preparetoin work very careful and perfect. That watching the movie is like experiencing real life of 13 th century event. Thanks for your attention

[suuri]

Making movie about whole achievement of Chinggis khaan is far difficult task for any one who wants to create one, even for hollywood film makers.

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[Jason]

It was a fiasco for mongolian viewers, I say. The japanese didn't know the character and the customs of the people of that early time and even mongolians, thus the acting was really poor. It's just a box-office movie. As a learner of mongolian history and a mongolian, I'd say the story was beyond far-fetched.

[sakura]

interesting tidbit: Mistress Khulan is played by Ara Go. She is a 16 year old South Korean actress already popular in her own country. She is known for her *natural* green gray color eyes.

She was the only Korean actress amongst the 40,000 Japanese contestants auditioning for the role in Japan. The Japanese were more than surprised that this unknown South Korean won first place- beating out well known Japanese celebrities.

[Michi]

Wow, I didn't know that John Wayne played Genghis Khan. In fact, Tadanobu Asano, another Japanese actor, recently played Genghis in a film called "Mongol" - I think Asano has a VERY MONGOLIAN-looking face, anyway. lol. Personally, I chickened out from spending money on "YAMATO" DVD when I was in Japan during the summer (Japanese DVD's are soooo expensive..), because of my emotional issues against ANY WWII-related movies (they aggrevate my trauma against it), and I hear mixed opinion about Kadokawa (being extreme right-wing). I prefer "Blue Wolf", it sounds more interesting to me, and as you point out, many interesting ironies are involved.

[Chris]

This sounds like a really interesting film. Of course, the ironies about this film are many. As you point out, this is a Japanese production about the life of Genghis Khan. It is quite ironic that one of the few countries that the Mongols could never conquer, Japan, makes a film about their greatest leader. Even more ironic is the fact that the mighty Khan himself will be played by a Japanese actor, Takeshi Sorimachi.

The only other previous actor that I am aware of playing Genghis Khan is John Wayne (!!??!!) back in the 1960s. Nowadays, that film with American film legend John Wayne is considered to be Hollywood racism at one of its lowest ever points.

The casting of Sorimachi is an interesting decision since he is still so well-known for his role in the live-action "GTO" series. He probably has decided that he needs new territories to, er, conquer after his unexpected success with "Otokotachi no Yamamto" and so many TV dramas (eg, "Hot Man" and "Beach Boys").

It is interesting to read that the Mongolian government is going all out to help in the making of this film. Here's hoping that "Blue Wolf" will be a success, commercially and artistically, while paying homage to history at the same time. I would also like to see Kadokawa-san show Hollywood how to make an involving historical epic for just the fraction of the cost.

Just as an aside, the attempted Mongol-led invasion of Japan (on the north shore of Kyushu near modern day Fukuoka) would make a rather interesting and thrilling movie in of itself. After watching an absolutely fascinating Discovery Channel documentary about the subject (It appears that the Mongols used cannonballs that emitted shrapnel on impact during the invasion AND the Mongol general in charge had no experience as a naval commander AND it was the King of Korea who suggested the invasion to the Mongols.), the movie I have in mind would be rather expensive indeed.

Sorry about the history lesson. Here's hoping that this will be an excellent film and another feather in Kadokawa's cap.

It's about time the Japanese film industry started to make big films such as this.

Chris
Fort Hood, Texas

[Michi]

Thanks for the heads-up!! This is intereting! I will write an article about it.

[George Da Costa]

I found good coverage of the film on this site: http://mongolianartist.com