Talk:Jidaigeki

Expanding Lists
Nice page, but a little spars on the reference lists for films, Anime&Manga. I went ahead and added 32 entries in all. A few need stubs, like Ansatsu, Incident at Blood Pass, Men Who Tread on a Tiger's Tail, Rebel Samurai, Ronin Gai (kinda surprises me), Samurai Wolf, Shinobi no Mono, Shogun's Vault and the Satsuma Gishiden manga. Hitokiri (AKA Tenchu) and Shinsengumi ( not the TV series of the same name) both seem to link to the wrong subject so maybe someone more skilled then I can fix that.--Dreamornaut (talk) 19:48, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Trivia/References

 * The term "Jedi" (as in Jedi Knight) from the Star Wars saga was likely derived from jidaigeki by George Lucas as he was heavily influenced by Akira Kurosawa.

I have commented out this line from the article, as well as the "supporting" references offered. None of the references cited actually uphold the assertion that the name "Jedi" is, or was likely, derived from "jidaigeki"; they merely affirm the fact that Lucas has acknowledged a thematic influence from certain Japanese period films. This assertion is appears to be pure conjecture. - Tenmiles 03:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The IMDB ref does say- "George Lucas mentioned in an interview that he saw a "Jidai Geki" program on TV while in Japan a year or so before the movie was made and liked the word," so it does uphold that assertion. How reliable this is is a different question, likewise whether it is actually notable or relevant for this page and not the Star Wars page. --DrHacky 07:24, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

It's sourced, not conjecture. "Commenting out" isn't merited, though changing the wording as you propose could work just fine. Yes, it is relevant. Badagnani 07:38, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I stand corrected, though I also agree that this item would be more relevant to a Star Wars article, perhaps wikilinking back to this one. As for changing the wording, I'm not sure what I proposed, and I can't seem to formulate a way to say it without more weasel wording than I am comfortable with. If you think that merely commenting out the passage wasn't merited (better than to delete it completely while it was being discused, I thought), then I apologize. I may have overreacted, as I'd just come from finding another purely conjectural link between a Japanese word and a Star Wars name in another article (Oniwabanshu, if you're interested). I even breifly entertained the suspicion that they were added by the same contributor, but that does not appear to be the case. - Tenmiles 05:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

It's one of the most important films of the 20th century, and most people don't know that the well-known term "jedi" likely has its roots in Japanese cinema (Lucas is a huge Kurosawa fan and "Star Wars" is full of "wipes," the technique of quickly "wiping" a scene's visual into the next at the end of a scene, for which Kurosawa was famous). It makes even more sense seeing the "light saber" fighting as having its roots in the jidai-geki films (why else would an advanced future culture fight in this way, rather than just using laser guns). I believe the Japanese reference is already mentioned in the Star Wars article. The only thing I think we don't have is the exact source of the quote (though the quote is alluded to the IMDB article). Badagnani 05:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I guess the biggest issue then, for me, is that I have questions about accepting the IMDB reference as a reliable source. I was under the impression that those trivia points shown there are items which can be added by (registered?) IMDB users, much as we contribute here. Searching around the Internet, I can't throw a brick without hitting dozens of (mainly Star Wars fan-) sites which all reference the same claim (I apologize for referring to it as original research), based on "an interview", which I am having a hard time finding. It's certainly far more widely accepted than I realized, and I am quite willing to admit that I was wrong. Still, could we locate a better source than a trivia section on IMDB? - Tenmiles 06:08, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm concerned about it being trivial. It might be worthy of mention if a short para regarding jidaigeki influences on Lucas/Star Wars is written, including the "Jedi" inspiration, but also some other stuff- sword-fighting, Hidden Fortress influences, etc. But just saying "jedi comes from jidaigeki" is fairly trivial to my eye and adds little to this article. --DrHacky 06:49, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't object to trying to get a rock-solid reference for this quote, or to mentioning the other Kurosawa influences. Badagnani 06:51, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I've tried to reword the trivia section, but I'm not satisfied with it yet. Please feel free to adapt it as you see fit. What I'd really like is to be able to see the actual interview (for the moment, I am making a guess that it may be the History Channel reference) to see exactly what was said. If it was along the lines of "So George, where did you get the word 'Jedi'?" -- "Well, I was in Japan and..." then we can simply state outright that he acknowledged jidaigeki itself as the inspiration for the word. - Tenmiles 07:18, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. Badagnani 07:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Chambara/Chanbara
Chanbara redirects here, chambara redirects to Samurai cinema, and the opposite spellings are used on the relative pages. Can we sort this out somehow? Is "chambara" (with "m") accepted as an English word? I think that's how I've always seen it.--DrHacky 07:16, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Both spellings seem to be in wide use, enough so that I'd say either one qualifies as "accepted" (though chanbara is the technically correct romanized transliteration). Chanbara ought to redirect to Samurai cinema just as Chambara does. I'm not sure how to do that. - Tenmiles 05:44, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I've changed the redirect- here, with some help from WP:Redirect (strangely enough). --DrHacky 06:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Jidai-geki = two words in one
Do not devastate Japanese dictionaries and knowledge of universities --Seibun (talk) 14:47, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
 * "Jidaigeki" as one word is the standard form used in the Library of Congress (see the ALA-LC Romanization Table). You refer to dictionaries, but note that Kenkyusha uses hyphens not because that is the rule in romanization, but in order to "clarify the constitution (kōsei) of the word" (p. xi in 4th Ed. of the New Japanese-English Dictionary). Michitaro (talk) 19:25, 29 December 2011 (UTC)