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The Japanese call them sentai shows - the five-person teams
of people in tight-fitting colored suits and helmets. They were all but
unknown in the U.S. until one of the "Ranger" series was imported as Mighty
Morphin' Power Rangers and became a hit. Kamen (Masked) Rider and other
series followed, all following the same formula. At the helm of many of
those Americanized sentai shows is Michi Yamato, who has choreographed
the action and fight scenes for nearly two decades. |
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Yamato was still a teenager when he saw the first Kamen Rider series
on TV in Japan, and he loved what he saw. "Their fighting pose was very
cool and their fighting style was very nice," Yamato said, comparing the
martial arts action to kabuki theater and Kurosawa films. Yamato learned
the style from one of the creators of the sentai series, and went on to
create his own action sequences. |
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The masked warriors in the Japanese live-action series use the stylized
fighting motions because they need to be expressive without using their
faces, Yamato said. The fighting style is something understood by Japanese
audiences - but not always appreciated by the Americans with whom Yamato
worked when he started working on the U.S. versions of those shows. Yamato
said he had to teach the American stunt performers how to act as well as
how to perform the fight scenes so they would look believable during the
action sequences. |
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Yamato plans to direct his own action movie in the next few months:
Shogun Cop will combine Japanese and American genres (along with Japanese
swords and American guns). Handling more than 125 sentai action shows for
American audiences has introduced Yamato to U.S. fandom, something that
surprised him. |
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The one part of the U.S. culture that mystifies Yamato is the restrictions
placed on "kids TV" by the government and network censors. "In Japan I
can punch in the face, but in the U.S. the violence code is very strange.
You can't kick the opponent's face. Then, how do I handle the choreography?
It's all ducking and blocking and a punch to the chest. And any bad guy
- when he wants to get rid of the hero - says `destroy him.' He can't say
`kill.'" |
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Yamato was disappointed with the American-made big-budget Godzilla
movie released just before A-Kon 9. "I expected a great Godzilla movie.
When I finished watching it, I thought `It was only a giant dinosaur in
New York.' The audience wanted to see Godzilla fight and destroy a city,
but the movie totally sucks." |
