Cinema’s Afro-Asia roots
The Hindu
Be it Netflix anime series 'Yasuke,' or albums by Wu-Tang Clan, the strong connect between the two communities is apparent in pop culture
‘I hear the pain in your voice behind those strained threats. The pain of an outcast forever marked by their skin. No matter how skilled in battle or honourable you proved yourself to be. I’ve felt it too. The dulled-eye masses hatred of anything they don’t understand.’ These lines, from LeSean Thomas’s Netflix anime series Yasuke, are spoken by a female samurai named Natsumaru (voiced by Ming-na Wen in the English version) as advice to the titular protagonist. The reason why Natsumaru feels there’s solidarity between the two of them is that Yasuke (Lakeith Stanfield) is a rarity: a dark-skinned African samurai, the first of his kind. Yasuke has been loosely based on the real-life historical figure of the same name, an African samurai who served daimyo (a Japanese feudal lord) Oda Nobunaga in the 16th century. . Released this April, Yasuke infuses several different kinds of genre sensibilities within its samurai origin story — there’s magic, gigantic fighting robots (a nod to fans of the mecha genre of manga/anime), and a whole lot else in its six episodes. It is also the latest example of Afro-Asian connections, both within Hollywood and across pop culture in general. Take the Wu-Tang Clan, for instance, one of the most famous and critically-acclaimed hip-hop groups of all time. Much of their early work, like their 1993 debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), used dialogue samples from Hong Kong kung fu films, classics like Enter the Dragon (1973) and The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978).More Related News