| Tenchi: The Samurai Astronomer | |||||||||||
| Native Name: |
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| Director: | Yōjirō Takita | ||||||||||
| Narrator: | Hiroyuki Sanada | ||||||||||
| Starring: | |||||||||||
| Music: | Joe Hisaishi | ||||||||||
| Runtime: | 141 minutes | ||||||||||
| Country: | Japan | ||||||||||
| Language: | Japanese | ||||||||||
is a 2012 Japanese film directed by Yōjirō Takita.
In the days when Copernicus's Heliocentrism was unknown to many, there was a man named Santetsu Yasui who attempted to create a correct calendar using astronomical observations.
Santetsu Yasui was born into the Yasui family, a prominent family that teaches Go to the shogun, is a honest man with no desire for advancement. He loves observing the stars and solving arithmetic problems and is often overly enthusiastic about them.
One day he goes to to see new sangaku where he meets a girl named En, who works there and later becomes his wife, after he completes his challenge for making a new calendar. En tells Santetsu about the man who answered the question on sangaku at first sight.
On that day, Santetsu and his Go rival Hon'inbō Dōsaku agree to have a real game, not a predetermined performance in front of the Shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna and their own Go master. Their game is interrupted by a solar eclipse which is considered as an indication that bad things will happen. Although these two get scolded by their masters since their Go performance is not what it is supposed to be, the Ietsuna finds the game interesting.
In those days, Japan used the Senmyō calendar introduced from China which showed discrepancy little by little. Then Hoshina Masayuki gave Santetsu the order to make a correct calendar by astronomical observations. The process of correcting the calendar has to be done by Imperial Court and this makes his challenge hard and troublesome.
The film chronicles Santetsu Yasui's life as a mathematician and inventor of the Jōkyō calendar. It is an adaptation of the novel Tenchi meisatsu by Tow Ubukata.[1]
The film received mostly positive reviews. Rabble was critical of the runtime and complexities of the plot but ultimately called it a "whimsical cinematic experience."[2] The Japan Times said that it was "probably the best film about calendar making you’ll ever see."[3] Geek of Oz called it "a well executed period piece."[4]
Variety was more critical, stating that Tenchi would only appeal to "science geeks."[5]