I recently got the chance to watch the first (of three?) live action movies called Dororo. Let’s just say it’s a odd fusion of story elements from well known samurai dramas, Pinocchio and Frankenstein and probably a few more given the number of subtle (and not quite so subtle) clichés spread throughout the movie. That, and it was originally written by the God of Manga himself, Tezuka Osamu as “Dororo and Hyakkimaru”.
Tsumabuki Satoshi stars as Hyakkimaru, who at birth was born without 48 body parts thanks to a bit of prenatal wheeling and dealing by his father, the (now) evil Kagemitsu Daigo to 48 demons in exchange for the power to rule the world. After being rescued from drowning in a river by a learned sorcerer and given immortal replacement body parts like Frankenstein (but much more successfully), he sets off after the demons after the death of his adopted father/sorcerer and burning down his house (yes, this is a samurai drama after all). This is all relayed by a blind minstrel to the other main character below (yes, another cliché) who gave him his first sword.
On the way he meets a female petty thief (singer Shibasaki Kou) who sees him dispatching one of the demons and decides to stick around Hyakkimaru to steal his Hyakkimaru sword that’s embedded in his left arm once he regains his true left arm. Hyakkimaru names her Dororo and he lets her stick around as demon bait or to distract demons despite her constant scowling, tomboyish behaviour and generally being a nuisance. In general, she acts as a comic foil to Hyakkimaru who’s pretty taciturn given he has no eyes, ears or voice (he uses psychic powers as substitutes).
As the movie progresses and the demon count clicks up more clichés are wielded (yes, the guy-in-a-suit-from-sentai-action-series is in there) Hyakkimaru and Dororo discover that it is indeed Hyakkimaru’s father who gave away his body parts and Hyakkimaru vows to take revenge, even after Dororo admits that she wants to kill Kagemitsu and forfeits her revenge to futilely convince Hyakkimaru to stop patricide.
Ironically the battles become more and more dangerous as Hyakkimaru forfeits his immortal limbs for his true ones which he can get injured by, so I expect by the 48th demon Hyakkimaru would be quite hard pressed to stay alive (though, they don’t get to that number thankfully, they have another 12 demons per film to handle).
In any case it’s worth watching if you have a interest in these sorts of films and don’t mind seeing a mismash of different styles for the demons and having clichés thrown left right and center (that is, if you recognise them). I’ll be looking forward to Dororo 2 and 3 when they come out, that’s for sure.
Web site here, Japanese. Google is probably your friend for more information.
As a side note, originally Dororo was a young boy, some have criticised Shibasaki Kou for her role as the newly recast Dororo however I feel having seen the film it’s an apt choice, she’s able to pull off the scowling tomboyish Dororo quite well and is definitely going to be pivotal in more ways than one in the sequels. Also - according to Tzuka Osamu, Dororo is a word play on Dorobo (thief) that he heard a child use once.
