The world-famous woodblock artist Hokusai (1760-1849), a widower in need of a steady income, lives with his daughter Oei in the house of his friend Bakin.

Takizawa Bakoto, een populaire schrijver uit de Edo-periode, begint zijn vriend, de kunstenaar Katsushika Hokusai, een verhaal te vertellen dat hij aan het ontwikkelen is, genaamd 'Hakkenden.' Om de vloek op de familie Satomi te verbreken, verzamelen acht zwaardvechters met acht kralen zich alsof ze door het lot worden geleid. Het is een prachtig en bizar verhaal over een felle strijd. Hokusai is meteen gefascineerd. Benieuwd naar wat er daarna zou gebeuren, bezocht hij Bakin regelmatig en maakte schetsen die als inspiratie zouden dienen voor Bakins creaties. Het verhaal, werd populair , maar toen het zijn hoogtepunt bereikte,wordt Bakin blind. Net als het hopeloos lijkt dat het project voltooid zal worden, krijgt hij een aanbod van zijn schoondochter met de vraag of hij haar kan helpen.

Oei, later known as Katsushika Oi, was born the third daughter of Edo’s talented painter Katsushika Hokusai and his second wife Koto. Although Oei became the wife of a town painter for a time, her love of the paintbrush more than her husband spelt disaster and she comes back home to Hokusai from the family she had married into. This is how Oei starts to help her father out in his painting of the “insurmountable high wall”. Meanwhile, Oei can only talk to the painter Ikeda Zenjiro, who is her father’s student, about her pain and worries. Zenjiro has taken Edo by storm as Keisai Eisen, the master of ukiyo-e portraying beautiful women. He visits regularly because he admires Hokusai and secretly likes Oei although their relationship is like childhood friends. Oei respects her father whose paintings fascinated her and continues to work as a painter who supports him behind the scenes. When Hokusai’s masterpiece Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji was completed, she was also by his side.

The unknown life of Ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai in the Edo period, who is said to have painted more than 30,000 works throughout his life, such as "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji"

In 2018 Japan’s NHK television network was given unprecedented access to the Freer Gallery of Art’s collection of works by Katsushika Hokusai so they could film the details of paintings using a state-of-the-art 8K video camera. The resulting documentary is hosted by actor Iura Arata and features commentary from the James Ulak, former curator at the National Museum of Asian Art, and Tim Clark, former curator at the British Museum. The film’s intended premiere in April 2020 was canceled due to the pandemic. We are proud to finally screen it. Explore masterpieces at a never-before-seen level of detail and enjoy new insights into the artist’s genius.