Figure 0.1. Calligraphic writing is ubiquitous in the daily life and built spaces of East Asia and has been for millennia. In contemporary cities, most of this carved calligraphy was replaced by photographic enlargements, neon, and lettering mimicking the calligraphic. Wallace Chan’s Fonting the City (Zi li chengjian, 2015) is a lovely documentary about the gradual displacement of hand-brushed signs by digital fonts in Macao.

Page 4 →Figure 0.2. The famous grave of Ozu Yasujiro has only the single calligraphic character 無, or “nothing.” It is surrounded by calligraphy one encounters in daily life, as in films, from the prayers on wooden strips to the labels on the offerings of sake.

Figure 0.3. Itomi Keinan’s famous calligraphy for People Whose Work Is Necessary Murder (Hissatsu shigotonin, 1972) and the scroll painting a friend gave me, evidencing the iterability built into calligraphy. A wedding present, Itomi left out the characters for “necessary murder”; however, the vigorous movement of Itomi’s body during the act of inscription is viscerally palpable and points to the show’s violence.

Figure 0.4. Titles by Akamatsu Hikozo include (starting from upper left): Fireworks (Hanabi, 1997), Face (Kao, 2000), Dolls (2002), Water Boys (Wata boizu, 2001), Hikari (2017), The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine (Kiku to girochin, 2018), This Road (Kono michi, 2018), One More Time, One More Chance (Tsuki to kabetsu, 1996), The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (Yuki yukite shingun, 1986), Zen (2009), Sekigahara (2017), International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo saiban, 1983), The Eel (Unagi, 1997), Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit (Seiei o mamoribito, 2016), and Kids Return (1996), and An Artist of the Floating World (Ukiyo no gaka, 2019).

Figure 0.5. A disposable chopstick, one of Akamatsu Hikozo’s beloved writing instruments, sits on the original calligraphy for Brother (2000). Its tips are bulbous from layer upon layer of dried ink.

Figure 0.5. A disposable chopstick, one of Akamatsu Hikozo’s beloved writing instruments, sits on the original calligraphy for Brother (2000). Its tips are bulbous from layer upon layer of dried ink.

Figure 0.6. These examples capitalize on the pictographic qualities of the Chinese character. The intertitle writer for Japanese Girls at the Harbor (Minato no Nihon musume, 1933) uses lettering to turn the character for mountain (山) into a pictograph of three peaks. On the left, calligrapher Tong Yang-tze uses calligraphic techniques to bring out the pictographic character for “face” 臉 for Tsai Ming-liang’s 2009 film.

Figure 0.7. Many Korean films use the hangul for “end” (끝) rather than the Chinese character. This is from Genealogy (Jokbo, 1979) by Im Kwon-taek, one of the directors in Asia that deeply cared about the calligraphy in his films.

Figure 0.8. The end title for Mizoguchi Kenji’s The Water Magician (Taki no shiraito, 1933) uses cursive calligraphy and is ornamented with ioriten, the squiggly lines framing text which indicate period and invoke the narratives of traditional theater and song.

Figure 0.9. With delicious irony, the vanquished character in the yakuza film Afraid to Die (Karakkaze yaro, 1960) played by Mishima Yukio stares at “the end” title.

Figure 0.10. The main character in Face of Another (Tanin no kao, 1966) spent much of the film with bandages wrapping his face. At the end, his face is still covered, this time by calligraphy—his eyes peeping out of two holes in the character.

Figure 0.11. The contrast between the calligraphy and the English typeface is striking at the end of Sammo Hung’s Warriors 2 (Zan xian sheng yu zhao qian hua, 1978).

Figure 0.12. Cang Jie is the mythical creator of Chinese characters. His monstrous appearance hints at the unique visuality of the Chinese character—its wonderful multidimensionality. The first input method for Chinese computing was named for him.

Figure 1.1. Blackletter calligraphy in the silent films Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924) and Faust (1926).

Figure 1.2. Intolerance (1916) and Christopher Columbus (1949) use variations of a humanistic hand, the latter with illuminated letters and the appearance of vellum.

Page 20 →Figure 1.3. Native speakers clearly wrote the calligraphy for The Wrath of the Gods (1914). The medallion on the right says “Ince” in katakana, and the left has the characters for “company.” In contrast, most Western films use faux calligraphy for East Asian writing.

Figure 1.4. America’s two enemies are othered through a calligraphic strategy in the propaganda classic Why We Fight: Prelude to War (1942), using blackletter for the Nazis and faux calligraphy for the Japanese.

Figure 1.5. Tong Yang-tze, one of the great calligraphers in Taiwan, included a tribute to the fourth-century master Wang Xizhi (right) in her title for Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye Dragon Inn (Busan, 2003).

Figure 1.6. The tokonoma in Harakiri (Seppuku, 1962) displays a stunning bokuseki, probably written by Teshigawara Sofu. It is the character 喝, or katsu; this is the word Zen masters say—“Ka!”—when they strike a disciple caught sleeping during meditation. Note that in this modernist work, the calligraphy is perfectly centered.

Figure 1.7. Eguchi Sogen, one of the first modernist masters, paints with a fistful of brushes in Peter Alechinsky’s Calligraphy Japonaise (1956).

Figure 1.8. Teshigawara Sofu, the founder of the Sogetsu school of Ikebana, wrote the title calligraphy for Harakiri (Seppuku, 1962).

Figure 1.9. Teshigawara Sofu’s title calligraphy for Face of Another (Tanin no kao, 1966) is a stunning riff on clerical style.

Figure 1.10. Hangul calligraphy on a lovely paperscape, from the title of Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter . . . and Spring (Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom, 2003).

Figure 1.11. The title for Kim Ki-duk’s The Bow (Hwal, 2005) uses calligraphic hangul (활). By unconventionally extending the final strokes and painting them in black, they transform into the Chinese character for “bow” (弓).

Figure 1.12. Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kawabata Yasunari gifted his own calligraphy for the adaptation of Snow Country (Yukiguni, 1957). The two broad strokes framing character for “country” turn it into a closed, bounded space.

Figure 1.13. Umehara Seizan’s calligraphy for Kagemusha (1980); along with Im Kwon-taek and King Hu, Kurosawa Akira was one of the directors who cared deeply about the calligraphy in his films.

Figure 2.1. At its invention, cinema was seen in relation to popular amusements from traditional storytelling to new technologies of vision like the stereopticon. This stereopticon card shows Osaka’s Dotenburi entertainment district in 1904. The large banners advertise “the world’s longest color film.”

Figure 2.2. The Teikokukan in Kyoto, when it was showing Makino Masahiro’s Chushingura: Heaven and Earth Episodes (Chushingura: ten no maki, chi no maki, 1938). The theater is covered with calligraphy, from the title on the lanterns to the all-star cast above the entrance. Courtesy of the National Film Archive of Japan.

Page 36 →Figure 2.3. Spectators at Kyoto’s Teikokukan received programs like this one, which combines calligraphy and lettering. Courtesy of the National Film Archive of Japan.

Figure 2.4. Typical calligraphic intertitles for the silent films The Goddess (Shennu, 1934), Chushingura (1903), and A Public Prosecutor and a Female Teacher (Geomsa-wa yeoseonsaeng, 1948). Chushingura courtesy of the National Film Archive of Japan.

Figure 2.5. In the silent era, intertitles were brushed on black cards with white ink made from shells. Few of these cards are extant. The top example survived because Kawai Productions in Kyoto used it as a script cover. The bottom example comes from an unknown film and was preserved in an album owned by actor Onoe Monya. An art deco variation of clerical style, it shows the care with which these brush styles were conceived and executed. Courtesy of the National Film Archive of Japan (top) and benshi Kataoka Ichiro (bottom).

Figure 2.5. In the silent era, intertitles were brushed on black cards with white ink made from shells. Few of these cards are extant. The top example survived because Kawai Productions in Kyoto used it as a script cover. The bottom example comes from an unknown film and was preserved in an album owned by actor Onoe Monya. An art deco variation of clerical style, it shows the care with which these brush styles were conceived and executed. Courtesy of the National Film Archive of Japan (top) and benshi Kataoka Ichiro (bottom).

Figure 2.6. Some titles echoed modernist art movements like art deco and expressionism. Here are Mizoguchi Kenji’s Tokyo March (Tokyo koshinkyoku, 1929) and Futagawa Buntaro’s Orochi (1925).

Figure 2.7. The calligraphic parasol in Shimizu Hiroshi’s The Masseurs and a Woman (Anma to onna, 1938) indicates the hot springs setting and class.

Figure 2.8. In the talkies era, subtitles were brushed on black cards for optical printing. These cards are by Tamura Yukihiko, Japan’s first subtitler. Courtesy of the Toyota City Museum of Local History.

Figure 2.9. Spring of Korean Peninsula (Bando-ui bom, Korea, 1941): Both the scroll (left) and subtitle (right) are brushed, but one is so cursive it is virtually illegible while the other is designed for easy reading. The scroll is in Chinese, suggesting an upper class family, but the subtitle for this Korean film is in Japanese, the language of the colonizer.

Figure 2.10. Street Angel (Malu tianshi, 1937) includes subtitled songs with a bouncing ball cueing audience participation.

Figure 2.11. Conventionalized calligraphy for the yakuza film evokes slashing blades and drops of blood: Battles without Honor or Humanity (Jingi naki tatakai, 1973).

Figure 2.12. Props departments of East Asian cinema; clockwise from upper left: Shanghai, Seoul, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing.

Figure 2.13. Starting with Throne of Blood (Kumo no sujo, lit. Cobweb Castle, Japan, 1957), Kurosawa Akira used famous calligraphers for his films’ titles. For this one, calligrapher Kaneko Otei chose a brush with fraying hairs that created stray lines like cobwebs. It announces the film as an eerie ghost story.

Figure 2.14. King Hu was one of Asia’s directors who deeply cared about calligraphy, usually writing his own for his films; for The Swordsman (Xiao ao jiang hu, 1990), he even affixed his seal at the lower right.

Figure 2.15. Double Suicide (Shinju ten no Amijima, 1969): the woodblock print-inspired production design of Awazu Kiyoshi envelops characters in a calligraphic space.

Figure 2.16. The title of Gewaltopia Trailer (Gebarutopia yokokuhen, 1968).

Figure 2.17. Everything Visible Is Empty (Shiki soku zeku, 1975) is an experimental film copying and performing the Heart Sutra. The calligraphy is by director Matsumoto Toshio himself. Matsumoto organized each shot placement using the color-coded score above the image. Courtesy of Matsumoto Toshio.

Figure 2.18. When computers displaced brushed subtitling in the 1990s, font designers imitated the calligraphic styles that were established sixty years before (see fig. 2.3). This font is based on the hand of veteran subtitle writer Sato Hideo, who created two versions. VP Pachi imitates the gaps and shortcuts of acid-etched subs; VP Yakikomi models photo-chemical, printed subs. Courtesy of Sato Hideo and Font Alliance Network.

Figure 2.19. Die Bad (Jukgeona hokeun nabbeugeona, 2000); this poster design, with flourishes mimicking the spitting blood, marks a turning point in Korean title design.

Figure 2.20. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (Boksuneun naui geot, 2002)—the final character’s spike was designed to work against the knife in the film’s poster. Courtesy of CJ.

Figure 2.21. Choi Ji-Woong modeled his calligraphy for Kim Ki-Duk’s Pieta (2012) on a logo for Jane Eyre (1943), which he found on a flyer from his personal collection. Courtesy of Propaganda and Kim Ki-Duk.

Figure 2.22. Red Cliff 2 (Chi bi Part II: Jue han tian xia, 2009) uses a collage of characters from ancient masters.

Figure 2.23. Rubbing of a stele with calligraphy for “A Poem for General Pei” by Yan Zenqing’s (709–785), one of the most famous calligraphers in history. A designer borrowed the character for “war” (戦; bottom middle) for the logo of Red Cliff 2 (Chi bi Part II: Jue han tian xia, 2009; fig. 2.22). Courtesy of the Taito City Calligraphy Museum.

Figure 2.24. Johnny To’s Drug War (Du zhan, 2012) combines the same Yan Zenqing character for war with the character for “poison” brushed by Yuan Dynasty scholar and calligrapher Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322; upper left). The animated sequence (clockwise from upper left) shows a blood vessel crystalizing into cocaine and sprinkling into the shape of the film’s title.

Figure 2.25. An animated calligraph (生) by calligrapher Sisyu and Team Labo appears out of the ether, then slowly spins from winter, through spring to summer.

Figure 3.1. Yoshida Kiju prefers the “coolness” of type, which activates spectators and resists their desire for a hint about the movie to come. Clockwise from upper left: Flame and Women (Hono to onna, 1967), Eros Plus Massacre (Erosu purasu gyakusatsu, 1969), The Affair (Joen, 1967), and Good for Nothing (Rokudenashi, 1960).

Figure 3.2. Based on an actual incident, the main character of A Woman Named Abe Sada (Jitsuroku Abe Sada, 1975) castrates her lover, paints their names on their futon with a finger dipped in his blood (“Sada, Kichi Alone”), then carves her name into his arm.

Figure 3.3. The wispy characters of Failan (2001) were achieved by using tissue paper rather than brush, matching the melodrama of the weepie.

Figure 3.4. For Byun Young-ju’s Ardor (Mil-ae, 2002), Oh Seung-wook’s calligraphy mimics the sensuous curves of the lover’s bodies.

Figure 3.5. Painting on skin, rather than paper, is usually connected to magic spells (clockwise from upper left): Kwaidan (1964), Ugetsu Monogatari (1953), Brave Archer (She diao yingxiong chuan, 1977), and Hanging Tree (Janyeomog, 1985).

Figure 3.6. Substituting glass for paper, Jia Zhangke exploits the special qualities of cinema to turn glass frames within the film frame into traditional couplets in Platform (Zhantai, 2000).

Figure 3.7. Chushingura (1941) uses an ornamented background, which Thomas Lamarre calls a “paperscape.”

Figure 3.8. The paperscape from Yoshida Kiju’s Akitsu Onsen (1962) is textural, not pictorial; the calligraphy is by Shinoda Toko, one of the most important modern artists of Japan.

Figure 3.9. A thirty-foot long, double-sided cabinet in the props department of the Shanghai Film Studio is chock-full of scroll paintings. The scroll on the left features seal script; the one on the right uses a red paperscape with flecks of gold. On the right is a close-up of another work painted on a paperscape specific to cinema: the brand-new paper has been lightly sprayed with ink to give it an antiqued appearance onscreen.

Page 66 →Figure 3.10. Well-used inkstones and brush cups from the props department of Namyangju Film Studio, near Seoul.

Figure 3.11. Inkstone (Yantai, 1996) centers on an old Chinese woman who owns a bed-sized inkstone. Flashbacks to her youth (right) bring out the erotics of the fourth treasure.

Figure 3.12. In The Affair (Joen, 1967), director Yoshida Kiju has his actor read this poem as she writes it on the fusama, otherwise most viewers could not read the cursive grass-style calligraphy.

Figure 3.13. Set in 227 BC and centered on an assassination attempt on the First Emperor of Qin, Zhang Yimou’s Hero (Yingxiong, 2002) is filled with scenes of writing. This major prop uses seal style, which achieved a relatively unified form by this moment in history.

Figure 3.14. Kwan Tak-ming, as the kung fu master Wong Fei-hung, turns the brush into a weapon in a spectacular fight scene from Yuen Woo-ping’s Magnificent Butcher (Lin Shirong, 1979). He paints the character 殺 (“kill/murder/slaughter”) on his enemy’s chest, humiliating him rather than killing him.

Figure 3.15. The many personal seals owned by Kurosawa Akira (黒澤明) always used ancient seal style. The one on the right also has his English initials, AK. Courtesy of the Kurosawa Digital Archive.

Figure 3.16. Yellow Earth (Huang tudi, 1984) uses clerical style to infuse a sense of enduring history into the opening of the film, which is set during the Japanese invasion of China. In the first line, the effect of seeing a modern date (一九三七年九月) in ancient script is striking.

Figure 3.17. An intertitle from Backward Flow (Gyakuryu, Japan, 1924) renders a quote from a famous Noh play in grass style. Now such cursive writing requires special training to read: 千代のためしのかずかずに何を引かまし姫小松.

Figure 3.18. The title card for Lady Jang (Janghuibin, 1961) uses semi-cursive walking style for the characters 張禧嬪.

Figure 3.19. Ozu Yasujiro’s An Autumn Afternoon (Sanma no aji, 1962) uses standard-style calligraphy, which was deliberately written at a slow pace, laid with care, stroke by stroke.

Figure 3.20. Onibaba (1984) deploys an eclectic style with wispy strokes to echo the grass of the screenscape while simultaneously setting the stage for the film’s ghost story.

Page 74 →Figure 3.21. Director Zhao Liang asked the famous art critic and patron of Chinese modern art Li Xianting to write the title for Petition (Shang fang, 2009). After the production, Zhao had the original mounted and proudly displays it in his studio.

Figure 3.22. The characters for House of Flying Daggers (Shi mian mai fu, 2004) were written with great velocity, exemplifying a favorite saying of Chinese calligraphers: “Loose enough for a horse to pass; tight enough to stop the wind.”

Figure 3.23: Wong Kar-wai’s Grandmaster (Yidai zongshi, 2013),

Figure 3.24. Tong Yang-tze’s title for Tsai Ming-lian’s What Time Is It Over There? (Ni na bian ji dian, 2001) has a strange V-shaped design, evoking the hands of a clock.

Figure 3.25. When the deceptively dangerous Zhang Ziyi writes Michelle Yeoh’s name, she deforms the character 俞 through impressive cursive shorthand, giving it the distinct appearance of the character for sword—劍—and revealing her secret martial arts training.

Figure 3.26. (clockwise from upper-left): In Red Cliff 2 (Chi bi, 2008), a husband bids farewell to his wife as he departs for battle. They make love in the rain, and a single raindrop falls on one of her practice sheets for “calm/quiet/peace” 平安, landing squarely on the radical for “woman” 女.

Figure 3.27. (clockwise from upper-left): In a subsequent scene, her practice sheets are blown onto the floor. The husband shuffles the paper around. When the sheets for 乃 and 子 combine to make 孕, he realizes she is with child.

Figure 4.1. “Crushed” characters by various ancient masters for 書, “to write.”

Figure 4.2. Crushed characters in a diegetic letter in The Water Magician (Taki no shiraito, 1933).

Figure 4.3. In Mr. Vampire (Jiangshi xiansheng, 1985), the illegible charms of this Hong Kong comedy don’t need to be read.

Figure 4.4. This model book from Toei Uzumasa Studio in Kyoto is a source book assembled ages ago in the prop department to guide art designers. It has models for all manner of sign, fan, menu, lantern, and other props, specifying proper content and calligraphic style depending on object and time period.

Figure 4.5. Were Chinese characters painted by the principles of abstract expressionism, the result would be akin to Wang Wo’s Zhe Teng: According to China (Zhe Teng, 2010), where the individual stroke does not call for attention

Figure 4.6. Most films with a title and subject matter like Kill! (Kiru, 1968) would use spiky, violent strokes. This calligrapher builds the swelling desire to kill into the thick strokes of his title—which literally and ironically means “killing a human with a slicing blade.”

Figure 4.7. The strokes in the title of Patriotism (Yukoku, 1966) pull apart as if they could tumble in a heap, imparting anxiety and doubt, calling into question the very nature of “patriotism.”

Figure 4.8. The pre-title sequence in Warriors 2 (Zan xian sheng yu zhao qian hua, 1978) ends with this freeze-frame, the line of characters displaying a symmetry echoing the screenscape. The characters also become progressively smaller toward the middle, propelling the eye across the frame.

Figure 4.9. In Chunhyang (Chunhyangjeon, 2000), as in other films, Im Kwon-taek typically places characters in front of screenscapes of calligraphy.

Figure 4.10. Korean period films often create analogues to the screenscape with props. Here are typical examples (clockwise from the upper left) from The Villainess (Aknyeo, 2017), The Happy Day of Maeng Jin-sa (Maeng Jin-sadaek gyeongsa, 1962), Genealogy (Jokbo, 1979), and Madame Freedom (Jayu buin, 1956).

Figure 4.11. Calligraphic screens are relatively unusual in Japanese cinema. However, one scene in Ginpei from Koina (Koina no Ginpei, Yuki no Wataridori, 1934) has both, screens along the left edge and a massive scroll in the right-hand tokonoma.

Figure 4.12. A present sits in the honored space of a tokonoma in 24 Eyes (Niju-shi no hitomi, 1954), the vertical stroke of the calligraphy carefully displaced from the very center of the frame.

Figure 4.14. The strong image of the calligraphic umbrella tilts the composition in Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo (Zatoichi to Yojinbo, 1970).

Figure 4.13. Kill! (Kiru, 1968): staging actors’ movement starts with the calligraphic props.

Figure 4.15. In Brother, the two yakuza may be arranged with perfect symmetry, but the calligraphic plate is pushed ever so slightly off-center.