THE CHALLENGE

US, 1982, 109 minutes, Colour.
Scott Glenn, Toshiro Mifune.
Directed by John Frankenheimer.

The Challenge is a martial arts film, a meeting between east and west.

Scott Glenn portrays an instructor who smuggles a sword into Japan. However, when he encounters a trainer and discovers that the sword is a cause of a feud between brothers, he tries to intervene – and becomes a better man.

Scott Glenn has had a long career as an actor as well as an action star. He appeared in Robert Altman’s Nashville as well as Urban Cowboy and continued to make many films during the succeeding decades, including the official in The Silence of the Lambs. His Japanese counterpart in this film is Toshiro Mifune, the classic Japanese star of so many of Akira Kurosawa’s masterpieces including Rashomon and The Seven Samurai.

The film was directed by John Frankenheimer. He worked in live television during the 1950s and began to direct films for cinema in the late 50s. He started with The Young Stranger. However, he directed a number of significant films during the 1960s including The Young Savages, All Fall Down, Birdman of Alcatraz, The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, The Train as well as Grand Prix and The Fixer.

1. The popularity of martial arts films? The serious presentation of martial arts in a narrative story? The blend of action material with symbolic material? Successful blend? Successful entertainment?

2. Big budget production: director and his reputation, Toshiro Mifune and his reputation? Colour photography, Los Angeles, the contrast with Japan: cities, countryside? Japan of the '80s? Big business. offices, cities? Contrasting the past, the traditional homes? Traditional decor and costumes. weapons? The martial arts sequences? Fights? Editing and special effects? The musical score and the blend of East and West?

3. The title - to whom did it refer? The working title of the film: The Equals - with reference to the swords. to the two brothers, to the clash?

4. The impact of the prologue: 1945 setting, the solemnity - the grandfather during the credit sequences with the emphasis on tradition and the swords? The ritual and the ceremony? The abrupt and violent interruption? The placing of the flashback later - and its explanation, emotional effect? Dramatic impact?

5. The introduction to Rick: Los Angeles, sleazy parts oil the city, boxing, the bout, the fight between the easterner and the westerner? The mixed audience? The jeering? The bashing? Rick fighting back and knocking out the Japanese? His being fired? The Los Angeles bum? Appearance, manner, reputation? The practical wisdom of his friend with the garbage tins - patience? His room? ~ His reverting to this style of life after leaving the compound in Japan? The morose American misfit? Crude. sentimental, mercenary? His conscience eventually being stirred? His needs? His capacity for loyalty? His capacity for fighting and taking stances? The westerner joining weapons with the traditional Japanese? His becoming a substitute for the Japanese master? Inheriting his power, prestige, honour? His daughter? The transformation of the footloose westerner to eastern traditions?

6. Rick's personality and character? His reaction to the proposition? Travel? Getting through customs? His being taken at the airport. the repartee with Ando? Fear. torture, interrogation? Ando's explanations of Hideo's success? Torture? The death of the son in the van? His escape and his being stabbed? The chase through the market. the railway lines? The ordinary American and his observation of things Japanese? The martial arts, manners and tradition? His coping with the live fresh fish meal, his illness? The fight and his being beaten? His leaving the compound? His being solicited by Hideo to steal the sword? The motivation for his return. his reverence. participating in the training? The human element: friendship with Giro and his sentiment towards him? Love for Akiko? His respect for Sensei and learning from him? The stealing of the sword. the cat scaring him in the street. the confrontation,' his return ~ inability to steal the sword? His kneeling and asking to be taken back? The five days of penance -hunger and the rice, the sun sores, the rain. the rat. the beetles. the hallucination of Sensei with the sword? His participation in the full training? Admiration for the archers? His disbelief about traditional weapons confronting 20th. century weapons? His beginning to understand the sense of honour? The challenge to the duel and the confrontation in the forest? His quick thinking and saving the day? His plea to Sensei not to fight his brother? His disillusioned departure? Akiko coming in the apartment? His love for her? The enjoyment of the festival? The kidnap? The build-up to the showdown - his warning Sensei, helping him in the office building. becoming a partner with him?

7. The theme of the West adapting to the East? Rules, formalities, traditions. honour, love? The West as the inheritor of the East? The opening up of Japan - and the parallels with the 19th. century? The Americans discovering Japan? The echoes of the tragedy of the Madame Butterfly story?

8. The contrast of Ando and his adapting to the multinational unscrupulous terrorism of the rich Japanese?

9. The two brothers and the values they represented? Hideo and his action in 1945, his power, buildings, technology, the sequences of him holding the traditional sword while talking on the phone overseas? Surveillance in his building? His army of thugs, their guns and weapons? Greed? The discovery of the betrayal of his own father? The contrast with Sensei and his tradition, training his men, his daughter? A man of prayer? Traditional dress, talk? The illustrating of the martial arts and weapons? The challenge to the duel and the inevitable confrontation - after 37 years? The use of English language and of Japanese?

10. Themes of honour and tradition, violence and arms? Worthiness? The old and the new? Images of the split in Japanese society? The Americans and the influence of World War Two? The decline of American influence? American honour and dishonour?

11. Sensei's character: at home, relationship with his men, betrayed by his secretary - and the violent confrontation? His control, knowledge, spiritual sense? His choice of Rick? Testing him? His skill in the final duel in the office building? The incongruity of his appearance and weapons in the modern skyscraper?

12. Akiko and her suspicions at the start, killing and saving Rick's life, tending his wounds, training, translating her father's words, her plea to him to remain, the night with Rick, the ransom for her father and the sword? Her dead brother and his setting up the arrangement, transporting the sword in his wheelchair, the honourable death and the reverence to his ashes?

13. Giro - the Japanese of the future: traditional training, befriended by the American? Wounded by the traitor?

14. The conventional plot and its being used for martial arts story as well as symbolic interpretation of relationship between the West and Japan?

15. Themes of contemporary culture, progress, moral collapse, clashes of past and present, the perennial values? Honour, hope? A satisfying action drama?