We still now often see them in a Sumo wrestling match, used by the judge. And he will point the winner of the match so we have a saying ‘raise the gun bai’ ‘point with gun bai’ which means everyone know which one is the clear winner.
When we were getting ready for the scene of tournament, we thought it would be nice to have these for the commanders of each team and I started to research.
The first thing came to my mind was a famous tale of the battle of Kawanakajima in 1561.
A Big battle between two powerful daimyos, Takeda vs Uesugi and in this tale, Uesugi himself rode into Takeda's main camp, and he gave a strike of sword to Takeda himself. Takeda avoided this with his iron war fan. Uesugi kept running with his horse and disappeared.
They are both very clever, popular and excellent commander of the war period. Normally these important peoples don't fight themselves - just giving some orders and making decisions but this time they actually fought face to face. That might be the reason why this story has been loved by many people. Lots of prints exists with this theme.
Anyway. Based on each theme colour, I put together the idea of each fans.
Model makers made fans, and I just painted freehand, using paints that painters gave me, including gold.
It was fun to research, again with many wicked designs in 16c. And designed them and seeing they are making shapes was the most fun bit.
I don't think they were used in a film, though.
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