The Silk Road (film)

Not to be confused with Silk Road (film).

The Silk Road
Directed by	Junya Satō[1]
Written by	Junya Satō Takeshi Yoshida
Based on	Tun-Huang by Yasushi Inoue
Produced by	Kazuo Haruna Atsushi Takeda Yoshihiro Yûki
Starring	Toshiyuki Nishida
Cinematography	Akira Shiizuka
Edited by	Akira Suzuki
Music by	Masaru Satō
Distributed by	Toho
Release date	June 25, 1988 (1988-06-25)
Running time	143 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Box office	¥8.2 billion (Japan) $123,959 (USA)

The Silk Road (Japanese: 敦煌, Hepburn: Tonkō), also known as Dun-Huang, is a 1988 Japanese film directed by Junya Satō. The movie was adapted from the 1959 novel Tun-Huang by Yasushi Inoue. The backdrop of the plotline is the Mogao Caves, a Buddhist manuscript trove in Dunhuang, Western China, located along the Silk Road during the Song dynasty in the 11th century.

The film was released in Japan and China on June 25, 1988.[2] It was chosen as Best Film at the Japan Academy Prize ceremony.[3] It is the 48th highest-grossing Japanese film of all time.

Cast

• Toshiyuki Nishida as Zhu Wangli, a commander of the Xi Xia empire
• Kōichi Satō as Zhao Xingde, a student of Zhu Wangli
• Anna Nakagawa as Tsurpia, a princess of a Uyghur kingdom
• Tsunehiko Watase as Li Yuanhao, the Xi Xia emperor
• Takahiro Tamura as Tsao Yanhui

Reception

The Silk Road was the number one Japanese film on the domestic market in 1988, earning ¥4.5 billion in distribution income that year.[4] It was the third highest-grossing Japanese film up until then, after Antarctica and The Adventures of Milo and Otis, and remains one of the highest-grossing Japanese films.[5] As of 2013^[update], the film has grossed a total of ¥8.2 billion in Japan.[6] In the United States, it grossed $123,959.[7]

See also

• List of historical drama films of Asia

References

1. Infobox data from 敦煌 (in Japanese). Japanese Movie Database. Retrieved 2009-05-12. and Dun-Huang (1988) at IMDb
2. "敦煌". Maoyan (in Chinese). Retrieved 7 May 2020.
3. "Awards for Dun-Huang (1988)" (in Japanese). Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
4. "Kako haikyū shūnyū jōi sakuhin 1988-nen" (in Japanese). Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan. Retrieved 5 February 2011.
5. "邦画興行収入ランキング". SF MOVIE DataBank (in Japanese). General Works. 2008. Retrieved 19 February 2019.
6. "歴代ランキング" [All-time box office top 100]. CINEMAランキング通信. Kogyo Tsushinka. Archived from the original on 2013-01-15. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
7. "«Шелковый путь» (Tonkô, 1988)". Kinopoisk (in Russian). Retrieved 20 March 2022.

Bibliography

• 敦煌 (in Japanese). Japanese Movie Database. Retrieved 2009-05-12.
• "TON KO". Complete Index to World Film. Retrieved 2009-05-12.
• 敦煌 (in Japanese). walkerplus.com. Retrieved 2009-05-12.
• 敦煌(1988) (in Japanese). allcinema.net. Retrieved 2009-05-08.
• "Variety Japan" 敦煌 (in Japanese). Variety Japan. Retrieved 2009-05-12.

External links

• Tonkô at IMDb