Jackie Chan, director and star of countless rollicking kung-fu action movies, is another devotee of Sun Tzu and
The Art of War
. Though he has not yet fixed the title, Chan is producing a film based on Sun Tzu to debut in 2004.
Japanese cinema is especially rich in historical dramas with military themes. These films explore not just the weaponry and the approach to battle, but also the human sensibility that doubtless prompted Sun Tzu to compose his treatise. This is no surprise: When Chinese culture traveled to Japan,
The Art of War
quickly became a treasured text—so much so that the aristocracy trained in kendo (the way of the sword) and Chinese classics right up to World War II. And Sun Tzu remained every general’s bible. Moreover, the Japanese suffered through their own “warring states” era, a 400-year period of interminable civil wars and unimaginable brutality among provincial lords, warrior monks, and brigands, all fighting for land and power. This era ended with the founding of the form of government known as Tokugawa Shogunate in the early seventeenth century, but it has provided authors and filmmakers with endless fodder for historical dramas and penetrating psychological explorations.
Akira Kurosawa, the great genius of twentieth-century Japanese cinema, loved to explore historico-literary subjects, but his greatest works are popular tales of a common man caught in the jaws of history. They reflect Taoist principles and the codes of chivalry underlying the decision to fight and are imbued with the ancient Japanese understanding of Sun Tzu a millennium after Sun Tzu composed his treatise. In
Seven Samurai
(1954), itinerant warriors (samurai) are hired to rescue a town beset by bandit warlords. The fight scenes, the issues of class, and the final futility of violence make this a startling and moving work. The samurai, who in this instance personify the weak and small pitted against the well-equipped and strong, use battle techniques as explicated by Sun Tzu.
Kurosawa’s
Kagemusha
(1980) is set during a period of terrible interstate wars and consolidation, when a king dies and is replaced by a common thief who could be his twin. Though the action takes place long after the time of
The Art of War
, the film gives the sense of hierarchies and the laying out of plans before battle much as Sun Tzu described them. In
Sanshiro Sugata
(1945), an undisciplined young man becomes a martial arts expert and falls in love, providing viewers with a look at the principles of Sun Tzu on the personal level. Finally,
Yojimbo
(1961) tells the story of a highly skilled samurai who finds himself in a town divided between rival gangsters and who succeeds in bringing peace by adhering to the principles of Sun Tzu.
1
Edited from the original Preface to the 1910 Luzac & Co. edition.