Blue Eye Samurai creators Michael Green and Amber Noizumi discuss finding the beauty in bloody revenge.
This article containsno spoilersfor NetflixsBlue Eye Samurai.
Academy Award nominee Michael Green and co-writer Amber Noizumi have createdNetflixs latest original animated seriesBlue Eye Samurai.
How did you want to approach that with Mizu?
Amber Noizumi:I too am half-white, half-Asian Ive lived my life being caught between two worlds.
What would it have been like walking around looking differently?
But ultimately, its a story of self-acceptance.
In looking at things likeLady SnowbloodandLone Wolf and Cub
Michael Green: and we looked at both!
[laughs]
What is it about Edo Japan that just makes for telling good old-fashioned revenge stories?
Green:It was part of it!
You would go to the local magistrate and say I need to duel with someone.
Can I get the paperwork?
You could declare your intention, almost like I challenge you to a duel!
Noizumi:Someone could say What are you doing?
and [respond] Im on a revenge quest.
And people would be like Oh, okay.
[laughs]
Green:Men could, whereas women couldnt even travel without chaperones.
It was an interesting time.
Speaking of chaperones, youve got such a stoic and single-minded protagonist in Mizu.
What was it about pairing her with Ringo for this cross-country trek across Japan?
[laughs] Theres the surprise in what they have to learn from each other.
He goes from irritant to albatross to necessary partner.
We begin this story when Mizu is really announcing herself, shes gone public.
Youre always thinking of what the pressure is going to look like, whos coming.
Its going to be some mercenaries, some bad mercenaries.
It turns out, thats only the start of the challenges ahead.
What elements of Japan did you want to introduce to audiences who might not be aware of them?
Noizumi:When we did our research of the time, its just such a rich culture.
Theres just so much and it was hard to decide what we were going to use and not.
We knew that Mizu was going to have to go on this quest from town to town.
Green:We also see things that a lot of people dont know about.
When you see a lot of film and television set in that period, you see Japans Greatest Hits.
Its all the tropes and familiar images and Im sure we have things that people consider among those.
We just went What are some of the things that people have never seen before?
Ive never seen that!
How did you want to script the action?
How was it writing these action sequences that also helped inform the story?
Noizumi:We used a stunt choreographer.
The most awesome fight sequences you see are by Sunny Sun.
Our supervising director Jane Wu was old friends with him and she had this idea to do stunt choreography.
Its about the story, the emotional beats of the scene.
I wanted to talk about the sex scenes because sex is a tool and weapon in this world.
How did you want to approach incorporating eroticism into this story?
Some of the scenes that you see are culturally tone-setting.
In exploring the culture, there was this whole idea of the wood block prints.
If you look at them, they are extremely erotic and extremely graphic.
There wasnt the same amount of shame for sex that there was in Western cultures during that time.
It was about world-building.
All eight episodes ofBlue Eye Samuraiare available to stream on Netflix now.
