SHINTARO! THE SAMURAI SENSATION THAT SWEPT A NATION
November 9th 2009 00:57
Category: Television
Tuesday 3rd November may have been the day on which the race that stops a nation was aired on Channel 7 but frankly the real television bonanza was screened on SBS the following night at 8.30 pm, Shintaro, a documentary about the series; the Samurai, which first aired on Channel 9 back in 1964 and spawned a cult following. As soon as this program hit the television screens of mainstream Australia it created a literal cultural shift in people’s attitudes and tastes. It was very obvious from the outset that the maker of this particular piece was as much a fan of the enigmatic wandering samurai Shintaro as many of his interviewees were.
No doubt though you’re sitting there wondering just what this is all about; who is Shintaro? Why is this show relevant to anything? What is this series the Samurai and just what the heck is the Green Lantern waffling on about here? As I said about forty five years ago this single series literally changed the viewing habits and attitudes of an entire generation of Australians via a very very bold move on behalf of television programmers at one of the major metropolitan networks, Channel 9.
Briefly to summarise what the series was all about, Shintaro is a wandering samurai who is a loyal agent of the Tokugawa Shogunate and in his various wanderings around eighteenth century Japan he has numerous encounters usually involving insidious and evil ninja. Now even though Shintaro is a highly skilled swordsman, as a Samurai of the time would expected to be, he is loath to resort to the blade as his first means of conflict resolution. In contrast the various ninja that Shintaro meets are only to happen to chose violence as their first resort for negotiation, obviously they are on a tight schedule and can’t stand around discussing the finer points of diplomacy with some wandering samurai. Out come the shuriken and ninja-to and it’s all on for young and old, what the hapless ninja don’t realise is that even though he is loath to use violence straight off the bat it doesn’t mean Shintaro is a slouch when he has to fight. Things always end up badly for the ninja.
In essence then Shintaro was essentially a road trip movie with a nebulous objective, the forerunner of Kung Fu and other similar stories that would emerge on television over time. What made this particular series amazing though was its sudden rise to popularity in post World War II Australia. Granted the war had been over for twenty years but many of older generation Australians who had lived through that period and had participated in the conflict were still alive and no doubt many of them were in positions of significant influence within the society of the day. For Channel 9 to screen this show was in essence a very bold move, one that could have resulted in a major flop but instead turned out to be a stunning success.
This cultural shift provides a major basis for much of the shows discussion amongst its various guests who for the main part are Shintaro fans living the moment, living the magic that they felt as kids all those many years ago. Of course it’s not all roses and good feelings, there is a bit of disagreement from a former school principal, Rex Morgan, who mentioned that the show was having a bad influence on the youth of the day, running around like samurai and ninja chucking throwing stars and hacking each other, metaphorically, to bits. What horror, what uncultured behaviour, not like the children today; who seem to engage in fight club like activities; ala beating some poor sod to a pulp, videoing it on their mobile phones and then uploading it all on the internet. Frankly I think this particular principal had it easy, in fact he should be grateful that his pupils were only acting things out and not carrying them out.
Still it’s interesting to note that in the wake of the popularity the Samurai series the only time another channel attempted to do something similar was Channel 7 which screened the Phantom Agents, which whilst garnering some interest was nowhere near as popular as the Samurai. If this documentary has any overarching message other than being a homage to the Samurai, it’s that television networks in Australia have over the last fifty plus years have quite frankly atrophied and become nothing more than repositories of what the next best thing to come from the US is or what will be the next best local made soap opera. The vision, the risk taking, which characterised the sudden arrival of the Samurai onto television screens, has vanished completely so it seems.
Let’s face it when the leading actor who played the Samurai was actually brought out to Australia to do some live performances initially at Sydney then later expanded to Melbourne he drew a greater crowd than the Beatles, the biggest thing currently on the world stage. Toy companies made a nice hefty profit from the whole Samurai craze and the promoters of the show here on Australian television did quite nicely along with the network. All in all it was a great time for everyone concerned, the quintessential win win situation that is much talked about but very rarely ever seen. So where has the vision gone? Where has the potential vanished too in modern Australian television?
It is my opinion that in the current climate there is room for another Samurai, if only one of the major networks would have the courage to look into the concept and give it a go. This lack of vision unfortunately is the major stumbling block towards something as entertaining as the Samurai being shown on Aussie TV screens in a prime time slot and garnering a major following, in fact the last time a show did garner a major following and was shown at prime time it was axed because it wasn’t ‘rating’. That show was Xena: Warrior Princess and because it was being watched by those whom were not being surveyed to get ratings figures Channel 10 cut it, letting it’s fans languish and eventually forcing them to buy the DVDs or get pay TV. And don’t get me started on science fiction shows that are constantly being shown at an ungodly hour of the evening, shows that frankly have as much adult content in them as a Doctor Seuss book. Truly Australia is languishing in a televisual Dark Age despite what many pundits may say…
Briefly to summarise what the series was all about, Shintaro is a wandering samurai who is a loyal agent of the Tokugawa Shogunate and in his various wanderings around eighteenth century Japan he has numerous encounters usually involving insidious and evil ninja. Now even though Shintaro is a highly skilled swordsman, as a Samurai of the time would expected to be, he is loath to resort to the blade as his first means of conflict resolution. In contrast the various ninja that Shintaro meets are only to happen to chose violence as their first resort for negotiation, obviously they are on a tight schedule and can’t stand around discussing the finer points of diplomacy with some wandering samurai. Out come the shuriken and ninja-to and it’s all on for young and old, what the hapless ninja don’t realise is that even though he is loath to use violence straight off the bat it doesn’t mean Shintaro is a slouch when he has to fight. Things always end up badly for the ninja.
This cultural shift provides a major basis for much of the shows discussion amongst its various guests who for the main part are Shintaro fans living the moment, living the magic that they felt as kids all those many years ago. Of course it’s not all roses and good feelings, there is a bit of disagreement from a former school principal, Rex Morgan, who mentioned that the show was having a bad influence on the youth of the day, running around like samurai and ninja chucking throwing stars and hacking each other, metaphorically, to bits. What horror, what uncultured behaviour, not like the children today; who seem to engage in fight club like activities; ala beating some poor sod to a pulp, videoing it on their mobile phones and then uploading it all on the internet. Frankly I think this particular principal had it easy, in fact he should be grateful that his pupils were only acting things out and not carrying them out.
Still it’s interesting to note that in the wake of the popularity the Samurai series the only time another channel attempted to do something similar was Channel 7 which screened the Phantom Agents, which whilst garnering some interest was nowhere near as popular as the Samurai. If this documentary has any overarching message other than being a homage to the Samurai, it’s that television networks in Australia have over the last fifty plus years have quite frankly atrophied and become nothing more than repositories of what the next best thing to come from the US is or what will be the next best local made soap opera. The vision, the risk taking, which characterised the sudden arrival of the Samurai onto television screens, has vanished completely so it seems.
Let’s face it when the leading actor who played the Samurai was actually brought out to Australia to do some live performances initially at Sydney then later expanded to Melbourne he drew a greater crowd than the Beatles, the biggest thing currently on the world stage. Toy companies made a nice hefty profit from the whole Samurai craze and the promoters of the show here on Australian television did quite nicely along with the network. All in all it was a great time for everyone concerned, the quintessential win win situation that is much talked about but very rarely ever seen. So where has the vision gone? Where has the potential vanished too in modern Australian television?
It is my opinion that in the current climate there is room for another Samurai, if only one of the major networks would have the courage to look into the concept and give it a go. This lack of vision unfortunately is the major stumbling block towards something as entertaining as the Samurai being shown on Aussie TV screens in a prime time slot and garnering a major following, in fact the last time a show did garner a major following and was shown at prime time it was axed because it wasn’t ‘rating’. That show was Xena: Warrior Princess and because it was being watched by those whom were not being surveyed to get ratings figures Channel 10 cut it, letting it’s fans languish and eventually forcing them to buy the DVDs or get pay TV. And don’t get me started on science fiction shows that are constantly being shown at an ungodly hour of the evening, shows that frankly have as much adult content in them as a Doctor Seuss book. Truly Australia is languishing in a televisual Dark Age despite what many pundits may say…
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