The Donald Trump Of Japan

MORLEY FLATS, Alberta —  Before he began filming his epic $42-million Samurai saga “Heaven and Earth” here last August, Japanese producer-director Haruki Kadokawa asked the gods to descend from heaven and bless the ground on which his actors and 3,000 extras would perform.

Wearing a ceremonial robe and hat, Kadokawa--a High Shinto priest--made offerings of vegetables and rice wine at an altar transported from Japan to the location, an Indian reserve 30 miles west of Calgary.

As 200 guests looked on, Kadokawa was joined by the chief of the Goodstoney Indian tribe, and members of Japan’s aboriginal Ainu tribe--considered a link between the tribes of Japan and North America because of similarities in their beliefs.

Sake and a peace pipe were exchanged. Speaking through a translator, Kadokawa declared that his movie would be “poetry.” Two days later, shooting started on scenes in which the Canadian plains are doubling for the real-life battlefield of Kawanakajima which is today a Japanese tourist location surrounded by high rise buildings. (Production had begun in Japan last April.)

“Heaven and Earth,” which depicts the conflicts between two 16th Century feudal generals and the battles between their massive armies, has needed all the heavenly help it could get.

The costliest film ever attempted by a Japanese production company, it is also one of the biggest period costume dramas that has been produced anywhere in the last three decades. Spanning the seasons, the story requires--in Canada alone--the 3,000 extras (many of them Calgarian college students), 4,900 costumes, 10,200 swords and spears and 800 horses with full manes and tails, as befits 16th Century steeds. The production has weathered formidable obstacles, not the least being the loss of its star to leukemia four months after filming began (more on that later).

It would appear that such a monumental project could be pulled off only by a monumental individual. And Haruki Kadokawa is convinced he is such a person. A Resaissance man, age 48, he’s been compared by some in the Japanese media to Howard Hughes and hyped by his publicist here as “the Donald Trump of Japan”--a reference he quickly had removed from publicity materials.

Kadokawa is hardly lacking in ambition, confidence--or apparently ego.

“All of what I have--as a poet, an adventurer, a director, a man of religion, a businessman--will be incorporated into this movie,” he said during a break in shooting, through a translator. After all, he added matter-of-factly, “In my country, I am considered a superstar.”

“Heaven and Earth” will be released in Japan in the summer of 1990--the 15th anniversary of Kadokawa’s independent film production company--and promotional strategies are already under way to distribute a subtitled version worldwide.

Kadokawa readily admits that his personal goal with the epic film, in terms of scope and budget, is to dwarf director Akira Kurosawa’s sprawling Samurai opus, “Ran,” the 1985 reinterpretation of “King Lear” considered by many critics to be the pinnacle of Samurai movies. A lofty goal, considering Kadokawa has directed only three other movies--none of which have broken box office records or garnered international critical accolades.

But, Kadokawa figures, “Ran” cost just $11 million to make and utilized only 1,100 extras and 175 horses. Moreover, Kurosawa was 75 years old, and in ill health when he directed it.

Surmises Kadokawa: “To direct a costumed epic movie like this, a director must be physically strong and energetic as well as artistic.

“Kurosawa may have retained his special artistic sense of beauty. But his energy and his physical capabilities are gone. He is old. And I am young. I have physical capabilities as well as artistic vision.”

There’s a curious footnote to all this: Kadokawa not only intends for “Heaven and Earth” to be his cinematic calling card, it will be his swan song as a director.

“When this movie is done, I shall not direct again. For I believe a director must be young--in order to move with his troops.

“By the time I finish with the projects that I have scheduled beyond this movie, I will be too old. It will be time for me to concentrate on my business and religious activities.”

Slightly-built, a chain-smoker with graying hair, Kadokawa hardly cuts an impressive physical figure. But when he was surrounded by his cast and crew--and a visiting contingent of 100 Japanese reporters--there was no denying his commanding presence. Many in his sizable entourage regarded him with unabashed awe.

He’s attained a near-mythic quality in his homeland, according to sources there, where the media have dubbed him everything from “the man of seven faces” to “the young invader” to “the modern Don Quixote.” As well as Howard Hughes.

No wonder. Consider his wide-ranging accomplishments:

He reigns as Japan’s leading movie producer--deemed by Daily Variety as “not only Japan’s most powerful producer but its most prolific”--personally overseeing 60 features in the last 14 years.

He presides over Kadokawa Shoten (Publishing), Japan’s second largest publishing house, where sales last year were in excess of $300 million, with more than a dozen group companies.

His film company opened a small-scale Sunset Boulevard office in January, with two projects aimed at international audiences in development.

Broadway-bound, he’s co-financing the new version of “The Three Penny Opera.” Starring the rock star Sting, it opens on Broadway Nov. 5 at New York’s Lunt-Fontanne Theater, following recent try-outs in Washington, D.C., that ended Oct. 8.

As a Shinto priest, he heads one of the country’s 10 largest Shinto shrines.

As a haiku poet--who first achieved acclaim at age 9--he has written eight volumes of verse.

He’s achieved acclaim--and headlines--for real-life adventuring. He once commanded an ancient catamaran on a 10,000 mile, six-month voyage from Tokyo to San Francisco and on to Valpariso, Chile--gaining him honorary admiralty in the Chilean army. And he once traveled 1,200 miles from the Philippines to Japan over 44 days in an outrigger canoe.

Kadokawa’s latest adventure has him involved in a re-enactment of the discovery of the Americas, in which he’ll captain a replica of the Santa Maria from Spain to the Americas in 1992--the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ voyage. During the eight-month, 17,000-mile voyage, Kadokawa will even go Columbus one better and continue on to the explorer’s original destination of “Jipango”--known today as Japan. Kadokawa is footing the $3.5 million cost of the ship, which he blessed earlier this year wearing Shinto robes.

Yet for all his outsized public activities, he’s not an easy man to profile. Married four times--his fourth and current wife was also his first--he’s fanatically guarded about his private life. He also keeps much about his business to himself--including his net worth (said to be in the millions).

“I don’t care what people think of me,” he said during an interview in his motor home, which overlooked the site of a massive “Heaven and Earth” battle sequence, scheduled for the next day. “I have graduated from being concerned about other people’s evaluation of me.”

His many ventures--indeed the entire Kadokawa empire--seem to be founded on the credo (reiterated several times during an interview): “Without risk, there is no profit.”

His risks clearly include costly bridge-building to the West. His expansion to Broadway came by way of Academy Award-winning film producer Jerome Hellman (“Midnight Cowboy,” “Coming Home”), who went in search of financing after he had packaged “Three Penny Opera,” complete with a commitment from Sting. Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill wrote the German version of the enduring satirical musical, “The Beggar’s Opera” (first produced in London in 1728) in 1928. The central character, the conniving Macheath, is the subject of the song, “Mack the Knife.” It was the notion of Sting as Macheath that drove Hellman to pursue a Broadway venture, and investors.

“He (Kadokawa) was really eager to be the main investor--he didn’t want to be part of a group,” Hellman recalled. “And he wasn’t interested in having any other Japanese investors significantly involved.”

Kadokawa eventually put up the bulk of the money (both Kadokawa and Hellman decline to name an exact figure). Theater owner James Nederlander is the secondary investor.

All the business dealings were conducted before Hellman and Kadokawa met personally. When that moment finally came last March, at Kadokawa’s suite at the Pierre Hotel in New York, there was no haggling.

“It was all very simple,” Hellman said. “I presented him with several gifts--a beautiful, large signed portrait of Sting (taken by Hellman’s celebrity photographer-wife, Nancy Ellison), and an Indian fetish--and he gave me a check. And then we drank tea.”

Since that time, Hellman and Kadokawa have met personally on several occasions. Mused Hellman, “I can’t explain why, exactly--especially since we don’t speak the same language--but we seem to share common interests and attitudes. His is definitely a maverick personality. He makes his decisions based on feeling and intellect.

“Dealing with him isn’t at all like dealing with a giant corporation.”

Kadokawa was in his ‘20s when he first saw the play performed in his homeland--”But not as a musical, as a straight drama,” he said.

He cites his love of Kabuki theater as one of the roots of his Broadway involvement. He also talks passionately about a visit to New York where he saw “all the Broadway shows . . . ‘A Chorus Line’ and ‘Mame’ and many more. I was so enchanted. I also thought that I could do that.”

Kadokawa sees “Three Penny Opera” as only the beginning of his theater involvement, and plans to have a creative hand in future stage projects.

He also hopes to take “Three Penny Opera” to Japan. “But we would not translate the songs. They would be performed in English, as they are written.”

Kadokawa was in his ‘20s when he first entertained the notion of making films, inspired by two books--Harold Robbins’ “The Carpetbaggers” (about a Howard Hughes-like movie mogul) and “The Dream Merchants” (about moviemaking in early Hollywood).

“I was especially impressed with ‘The Dream Merchants,’ ” he recalled. “You see, I was interested in selling dreams. Dreams are what the publishing and movie businesses are about.”

It was the spicy 1974 French landmark “Emmanuelle,” that made him think that he could become a movie producer. “I heard--erroneously, it turned out--that the producer of that movie was younger than I was,” he said, with a slight smile. “I thought, I can do that too.”

In 1975, the year he founded his film company at age 34, he also took over the family book and magazine publishing business that had been founded by his late father. During the following decade, the company’s paperback book sales jumped from 6 million copies to 60 million. Advertising campaigns engineered by Kadokawa have been credited with the dramatic growth. One of the most famous, and most successful, was one that challenged: “Women! Turn off the TV--and Read Paperbacks!”

His movie empire, meanwhile, was also growing. He has been responsible for some of the most successful movies in Japanese-language history, according to a report in Daily Variety. Among them: “Ninegen no Shomei” (“Proof of the Man”), which earned rentals of $18 million in 1977 (three times its budget) , and its 1978 follow-up, “Yansei no Shomei” (“Proof of the Wild”), which had rentals of $16 million.

Kadokawa’s biggest score was “Virus,” a 1980 film about a group of Antarctic survivors of a worldwide plague--the result of germ warfare. Filmed for $15 million, and starring a cast of Japanese and English-speaking players (the latter included Chuck Connors, Glenn Ford, Olivia Hussey, George Kennedy, Henry Silva and Robert Vaughn), it opened in more than 150 theaters in Japan, marking the biggest opening in Japan’s film history to that time.

For Japan, where the box-office potential is considerably smaller than the U.S., revenues were huge, in excess of $25 million. It was eventually recut from its original 155 minutes to 109 minutes, rescored, remixed and restructured for U.S. distribution.

It was a natural evolution, says Kadokawa, for him to move from producing to directing. His debut film was 1982’s “The Last Hero,” a motorcycle movie, followed two years later by a drama about a female dancer’s creative quest, “The Curtain Call.” In 1986 he directed “Cabaret,” about a young saxophone player caught up in the criminal underworld.

In early 1987, Kadokawa announced he would film the $42-million “Heaven and Earth,” based on a classic Japanese novel published by Kadokawa’s company that had long been deemed “unfilmable.” He did not begin production until spring of 1989, he says now, because he wanted to distance his movie from Kurosawa’s “Ran.”

Though as Kadokawa readily admits, “I know the critics will make comparisons.”

A comparison he does not like is the inclusion of his expanding film empire to the burgeoning list of Japanese-financed companies.

“They are investors who are putting up their money,” he emphasizes. “I’m an artist interested in using my talent--not just my money.”

Japanese-born-and-raised Hiroshi Sugawara, a graduate of UCLA Film School, heads Kadokawa’s Los Angeles office. Sugawara, 35, has served as an assistant director or producer on a number of Kadokawa films, and directed the Kadokawa-produced “Seven Days War,” for which he won the equivalent of the Japanese Oscar for directing.

Both Kadokawa and Sugawara stress that the purpose of the Los Angeles office is to make movies with international appeal, while films aimed at the Japanese audience will continue to be made by the Tokyo-based production operation.

One of the first projects will be based on a popular Japanese novel, “Robot,” published by Kadokawa’s company. Martin Erlichman, whose credits include “Coma,” the “Breathless” remake and the two “Ernest” movies, will be the producer of the tentatively-titled $20 million “Island Robot.” Locations have already been scouted.

Lloyd Phillips, who won an Academy Award as the producer of the live-action short film “The Dollar Bottom” (1980) and later produced the feature, “Nate and Hayes” (1983), will produce “Deception” for the company. Robert Dillon (“The French Connection II”) is scripting.

It was through an attorney--who represented both men--that Phillips met Kadokawa. (Phillips later introduced Kadokawa to his friend, Jerome Hellman.) Phillips then proposed “Deception”--which he described as, “a contemporary ‘The Third Man,’ with a woman in the lead”--to Kadokawa.

“Dealing with him isn’t like dealing with a studio. After all, he’s a film maker, too,” said Phillips, adding, “And there’s another big difference: there are no committees involved. If he says he’ll do something, he’ll do it.’

Erlichman, who was recruited by Kadokawa’s company for “Island Robot,” was in the midst of his second meeting with Kadokawa (“I was explaining what I thought the procedure should be for getting the project done”) when Kadokawa stood up and said something in Japanese. Recalled Erlichman, “A translator told me, ‘Mr. Kadokawa understands what you are talking about. Now he wants to know if you wish to be involved in this with him--because he has a plane to catch.’ ”

Mused Erlichman, “Usually, you take a little more time before you commit to something in this business. But Kadokawa is not the usual head of production, is he?”

For now, though, Kadokawa must finish “Heaven and Earth,” which is still shooting in Japan, having been troubled by everything from illness to lousy weather.

Frequent cloudbursts--during what Calgarians say was their wettest August since the 1920s-- hindered many scenes, and resulted in many sopping Samurai during the Alberta locations. A cowboy-hatted Kadokawa prayed to the gods from his director’s chair, but still the rains came.

Most devastating of all, though, was the discovery that the film’s tall, handsome star was seriously ill. Ken Watanabe, a superstar in Japan, complained of eye problems early into the Calgary shoot. When medical tests revealed he had leukemia, he returned home for treatment. His fans are said to be keeping a vigil outside the hospital where he is staying.

Kadokawa also returned--to recast a virtual unknown, Takaaki Enoki, in the part of Kenshin, literally in two days--spending a total of six hours in Japan. The casting of a new star means key scenes will have to be re-shot, especially closeups (longshots are not a problem, as Watanabe was heavily made-up) and sequences shot in Japan during the cherry blossom season. That re-shooting will probably have to take place next spring, when cherry blossoms are again in bloom. Kadokawa estimates this will add $2 million to the film’s budget.

But he also figures that the publicity in Japan surrounding the casting crisis will be worth $5 million. “One out of every 10 people in Japan--no less than 10 million people--will see this movie,” he predicts.

It is no coincidence that the storyline of “Heaven and Earth” involves a spiritual man struggling to coexist with his god.

Kadokawa proudly informs a reporter that he has been named Chief White Cloud by the chief of the Alberta Goodstoney tribe, in a special Indian ceremony.

“The chief,” explained Kadokawa, “said the title refers to that which separates heaven and earth.”

Research assistance for this story was provided by Takeshi Yabe in the Times Tokyo Bureau.