Hence, I had a grand time watching two Kabuki films featured as part of the Cinema Kabuki running at the Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto from Nov. 11 to 15. Two very different forms of Kabuki are represented by the Triple Lion Dance, which has been adapted from a classical Noh play, and The Peony Lantern (Kaidan Botan Doro) which is based on a rakugo story by Sanyutei Encho (1839-1900) and written for the current film by Nobuyuki Onishi.

Both plays were staged on a traditional Kabuki stage that features a projection known as a hanmichi, which is a walkway that extends the length of a theater and from which dramatic entrances and exits are made. This is, however, the only similarity between the two plays shown in HD format, very similar to the Metropolitan Opera's live HD broadcasts. These plays are vastly different in approach and setting, but the combine ancient with modern to perfection.

The Triple Lion Dance, as the name implies, features three lions (shishi). It is a highly formalized performance which uses a great deal of dance to express action. The Shishi (Lions) in the production staged in 2007 at the Shimbashi Embujo Theater, Tokyo, are performed by Kanzaburo and his sons Kantaro and Shichinosuke. The three trace their Kabuki linage back to the mid-17th century, which gives them high standing in Japan's Kabuki world. Foremost, though, they posses an absolute mastery of their art which I found absolutely absorbing.

There are three distinct acts in this play in which Act II is a comic interlude that features a broadly humorous rivalry between two Buddhist monks on their way to a holy mountain. It has a satiric tone about religion, or one should say about those who follow it without real understanding of its true purpose.

The opening act presents the background to the story (musicians who perform on string instruments and drums, and singers are seated slightly elevated behind the performers) and in front of a beautifully painted backdrop that is unrelated to the action. In this act the three lions present the story through gestures, facial expressions and shishi masks. They are also supported by the musicians and by the singers to reveal the action.

The third act brings the three lions back, only this time in full costume with glorious manes, the father in white, the sons in red. Although their origin is, no doubt, similar to that of the Chinese lions, but that is where any similarity ends. Dancing in front of the stone bridge (going back to the play's Noh origins) they display their strength through the movement of the manes. This sign of strength allows them to protect the bridge from any humans passing across it on the way up the sacred mountain. They twirl their amazing manes in absolute coördination. The dance movements combined with the twirling of the manes has no set number and only ends when the elder, white-maned dancer stomps twice on the ground to signal the completion of the action. When seen in High Definition as these films are presented, it is as breathtaking as any live performance and worth a trip to the Scotiabank Theatre.

The Peony Lantern has two acts with many scenes. It is tied together by a traditional Rakugoka (a lone storyteller) who appears briefly on stage to move the action forward between some scenes and the two acts. There are no musicians on stage. Instead there are regular sets that change according to the scenes, and although there is a certain amount of stylization, the actors give fully dimensional performances that make it easy for anyone to follow the action even if the dialog is not understood. Fortunately, there is a subscript with an English translation. This production was filmed at the Kabuki-za Theater, Tokyo in 2007.

The Peony Lantern is a love story, a ghost story, and a story about greed and its consequences. This form of story originally came to Japan in the early 1600s from China where they were called Jian Deng Xin Hua (New Tales under the Lamplight) and contained — as does this story — elements of Buddhist moral lessons. Yet, its very secular action and ordinary characters make it fully accessible to modern audiences. The excellent costumes and sets, the emotive acting as well as the stylized movements all combine to make this a most entertaining play, again made vivid through its HD presentation as a movie.