History of the Birth of “Henmen”

~Birth of a face change~

Making masks was born in the traditional Chinese performing art of Chuan Opera.
"Mask changing technology" was developed to express the story in Kawageki.

[Story 1]

This story dates back to the Northern Qi dynasty in China.

During the Northern Qi dynasty, there was a brave and masculine warrior, King Lan Ling. However, his face was feminine and he was despised by the enemies he faced as he fought on the battlefield. So he wore a mask to hide his true face during the confrontation.

When performing this, a simple mask lacks fun, so a production technique was invented to change the color of the mask.



[Story 2]

The main character of "Kishorou", Bei Ebisu, was a famous thief who always stole money from the rich and gave it to the poor.

He was wearing a mask. Therefore, no one knew Kai Ebisu's face, and he was never caught.
In the Kawageki, in the 1830s, in the original Kishoro, the performers of Kai Ebis put on masks made of several pieces of hard paper and changed their faces. . Later, in order to make the facial changes look more natural, I drew several different faces on strong paper, pasted them on top of each other, covered them with smoke, fans, etc. Did.

In order to express such a story, a performance using masks was born.

Since then, as the times have progressed, the technique of changing masks has evolved, and the moment the actor puts his hand on his face, the mask changes one after another.

Birth of a modern change

Since then, the face has evolved day by day.

The first King of Masks

1993Wang Taozhen(born in Chongqing 1939, actor of Chinese Theater) We have developed a modified face that will be the base of.
In the beginning, there was no costume studio, and there is a secret story that Odo Tadashi's wife made the costumes.

Later on, Wang Dao Tadashi's mask masking technique was recognized, and
he came to be called the "first king of face masking" in China.

New Mask King

After that, Mr. Wang Liu Shihu made improvements to his mask masking techniques and costumes,
and in 2004 he was recognized as the "New Mask King".
This was around the time when the number of mask-masking artists and mask-mask factories began to increase.

Development of secret techniques

Mr. Peng Teng-Yi (born in Sichuan in 1946, actor of the Chinese Theater Company) increased the number of masks and developed techniques such as four-fold masks.

today

The costumes continue to change day by day.

After a year, the mechanism is gradually changing.

The material is also durable every day, making it a costume that is easy to use for maskers.
Highly colored masks using high-performance printers are also a product of development.

We also put a lot of effort into our original masks.
The customer's photo or illustration will be printed on the
mask using a high-color printer.
This is the result of daily research.

 For a more detailed history of the face change, see here . 

A state secret? How to become a face masker? : From !