Videos

This is the first motion picture about kendo. (So the word "probably" in the movie title is not correct and it was confirmed after I had made the title.)

According to the deleted french narrator the film was shot in Kyoto during a kind of warming-up training of a kendo competition at the end of October 1897 by Constant Girel. Louis Lumière was apparently not satisfied with the work of Girel, for unknown reasons.

Anyway, this is a true treasue of the Kendo World.

***I do not own any copyrights of the clip.***

Information about the clip in french:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escrime_au_Sabre_Japonais

For a collection of kendo videos througout the history visit:
http://www.kinsho.hu/2011/11/az-elso-mozgokep-kendorol.html

Kendo in the First Movies (c. 1897)
In 1897, the Lumiere brothers sent their representative, Gabriel Veyre, to Japan, who made several short films about 3 minutes long: Geisha in a Jinriksha , Kendo Combat, Rain Dance of Spring.
forrás: Source: Lionel Lambourne, Japonisme: Cultural Crossings Between Japan & the West at 223 (2005).
http://www.rivercityiaido.com/old_photo_gallery.html