On February the 26th 2018, I watched a movie called “Legend of the Demon Cat（妖猫传）”. It is a fake story of the famous Japanese monk Kukai（空海）, the great Chinese poet Bai Juyi（白居易） and their investigation for the relation between witchcrafts originated from a demon cat and the death of Yang Guifei（杨贵妃）. In Japanese sense, some people think the movie is too theatrical. However, think of the poems of Bai Juyi, Li Bai（李白）or other great poets in Chinese history. The descripted scales of phenomena are some orders larger than Japanese incidents (please look at the gorgeous sets produced in the movie). The Chinese are more realistic, rational and good at trading, compared with emotional Japanese. Therefore the structure of theatrical ways of expressions is different from its Japanese sense. Recalling the knowledge of Chinese writing in Japanese high school days would attenuate the expected feelings.
The main theme for the movie is the sense of illusions. In the movie, quite a few magic tricks appeared, and the final output of the story itself is an illusion overriding the facts in the story, vanishing many parts of evidence concomitant with its internalization to the characters. Kukai was rational and avoiding illusions, whereas Bai Juyi was persuing illusions. Despite their difference in nature, they were a good team for detective acts. Both aspects of human nature seem to be important for voyaging illusional nature of the real world, concealing most parts of the actual facts occurring. The demon cat was just a symbol of them.
