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Seijun Suzuki, born Seitaro Suzuki, was a Japanese filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter. His films are known for their jarring visual style, irreverent humour, and entertainment-over-logic sensibility. He made 40 predominately B-movies for the Nikkatsu Company between 1956 and 1967, working most prolifically in the yakuza genre. His increasingly surreal style began to draw the ire of the studio in 1963 and culminated in his ultimate dismissal for what is now regarded as his magnum opus, Branded to Kill (1967), starring notable collaborator Joe Shishido. Suzuki successfully sued the studio for wrongful dismissal, but he was blacklisted for 10 years after that. As an independent filmmaker, he won critical acclaim and a Japanese Academy Award for his Taishō trilogy, Zigeunerweisen (1980), Kagero-za (1981) and Yumeji (1991).
The Nikkatsu Corporation is a Japanese entertainment company known for its film and television productions. The name Nikkatsu amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Motion Pictures".
Branded to Kill is a 1967 Japanese yakuza film directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Joe Shishido, Koji Nanbara, Annu Mari and Mariko Ogawa. The story follows contract killer Goro Hanada as he is recruited by a mysterious woman named Misako for a seemingly impossible mission. When the mission fails, he is hunted by the phantom Number One Killer, whose methods threaten his life and sanity.
Tokyo Drifter is a 1966 yakuza film directed by Seijun Suzuki. The story follows the reformed yakuza hitman "Phoenix" Tetsu, played by Tetsuya Watari, who is forced to roam Japan while avoiding execution by rival gangs.
Yakuza film is a popular film genre in Japanese cinema which focuses on the lives and dealings of yakuza, Japanese organized crime syndicates. In the silent film era, depictions of bakuto as sympathetic Robin Hood-like characters were common.
Youth of the Beast is a 1963 Japanese yakuza film directed by Seijun Suzuki. Much of the film is set in Tokyo, Japan.
Fighting Elegy, also titled Elegy to Violence and The Born Fighter, is a 1966 Japanese drama film directed by Seijun Suzuki. It is based on the novel Kenka erejii by Takashi Suzuki.
The Japanese New Wave is a term for a group of loosely-connected Japanese films and filmmakers between the late 1950s and the early 1970s. The most prominent representatives include directors Nagisa Ōshima, Yoshishige Yoshida, Masahiro Shinoda and Shōhei Imamura.
Asaki Takamori, known by the pen names Ikki Kajiwara and Asao Takamori, was a Japanese author, manga writer, and film producer. He is known for the work about sports and martial arts, with images of heroic young men with the occasional fine details as he moves from one topic to another. He considered Tiger Mask and Star of the Giants to be his life's work.
Joe Shishido was a Japanese actor most recognizable for his intense, eccentric yakuza film roles and his artificially enlarged cheekbones. He appeared in some 300 films but is best known in the West for his performance in the cult film Branded to Kill (1967). In Japan, he is also known by the nickname Joe the Ace for his popular role in the Western Quick Draw Joe (1961).
Underworld Beauty is a 1958 Japanese film directed by Seijun Suzuki. It marked Suzuki's first CinemaScope film and was also the first to be credited to his assumed name Seijun Suzuki.
Kanto Wanderer is a 1963 Japanese yakuza film directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Akira Kobayashi, Chieko Matsubara, Daizaburo Hirata and Hiroko Itō. It was a programme picture produced by the Nikkatsu Company to fill out the second half of a double bill with Shohei Imamura's The Insect Woman. The film was based on a novel by Taiko Hirabayashi and had been previously adapted to the screen as Song from the Underworld (1956) by Suzuki's mentor, Hiroshi Noguchi. The story involves Katsuta, a yakuza member who falls in love and is torn between giri (duty) and ninjo (humanity). The Kanto of the title refers to a large plain on which Tokyo is located.
Zigeunerweisen is a 1980 independent Japanese film directed by Seijun Suzuki and based on Hyakken Uchida's novel, Disk of Sarasate. It takes its title from a gramophone recording of Pablo de Sarasate's violin composition, Zigeunerweisen, which features prominently in the story. The film makes the first part of Suzuki's Taishō Roman Trilogy, followed by Kagero-za (1981) and Yumeji (1991), surrealistic psychological dramas and ghost stories linked by style, themes and the Taishō period (1912-1926) setting. All three were produced by Genjiro Arato.
Genjirō Arato was a Japanese film producer, actor and director.
Everything Goes Wrong is a 1960 Japanese Sun Tribe film directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Tamio Kawachi and Yoshiko Yatsu in her film debut. The story follows Jirō, a rebellious high schooler, in his sadomasochistic and criminal misadventures, specifically as they relate to his girlfriend, mother and her lover. The film was produced and distributed by the Nikkatsu Company. Kinema Junpo called it an early masterpiece in Suzuki's career.
Takeo Kimura was a Japanese art director, writer and film director. Beginning his career in 1945 he art-directed well over 200 films. He was one of Japan's best known art directors, most famously for his collaborations with cult director Seijun Suzuki through the 1960s at the Nikkatsu Company, exemplified by Tokyo Drifter (1966). Other directors with whom he frequently worked include Toshio Masuda, Kazuo Kuroki, Kei Kumai and Kaizo Hayashi. At age 90 he made his feature film directorial debut with Dreaming Awake (2008). He had also worked as a critic, writer, painter, photographer and teacher.
The following is the filmography of Takeo Kimura, the Japanese art director, writer, and film director who has art-directed more than 200 films over a span of more than six decades and ranks among Japan's best-known art directors. His training began with the Nikkatsu Company in 1941, whose production division was merged into Daiei during the wartime industry reorganization, where he was promoted to art director in 1945. His debut film as such was Umi no yobu koe (1945). Nikkatsu re-opened its production studio in 1954 and Kimura moved there. He worked with several directors, including top action director Toshio Masuda on films such as Red Quay (1958) with top star Yujiro Ishihara and Gangster VIP (1968) starring Tetsuya Watari. However, his longest and most famous collaboration has been with director Seijun Suzuki, which began with The Bastard (1963). Together they developed a bold, expressive style exemplified in Gate of Flesh (1964) and Tokyo Drifter (1966). Suzuki often rewrote his scripts with Kimura, who was given his first screenwriting credit on The Flower and the Angry Waves (1964). Kimura was also a part of Guryū Hachirō, the pen name of the writing group that formed around Suzuki in the mid-1960s and wrote Branded to Kill (1967).
Kazuhiko Hasegawa is a Japanese film director. He won the award for Best Director at the 1st Yokohama Film Festival for The Man Who Stole the Sun.
Inflatable Sex Doll of the WastelandsakaDutch Wife of the WastelandandThe Dutch Wives of the Wild, originally released as Horror Doll, is a 1967 Japanese pink film written and directed by cult filmmaker Atsushi Yamatoya, starring the first "Queen" of pink film, Noriko Tatsumi, and with music by the noted jazz pianist, Yōsuke Yamashita.
Take Aim at the Police Van is a 1960 Japanese film directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Michitaro Mizushima.
References
- ↑ Coleman, Lindsay (2019-05-09). Killers, Clients and Kindred Spirits: The Taboo Cinema of Shohei Imamura. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-1-4744-1182-0.
- ↑ Carroll, William (2018-01-02). "'I don't masturbate, I fight!': the Spectre of Kita Ikki in Suzuki Seijun's Kenka Ereji (Fighting Elegy, 1966)". Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema. 10 (1): 47–60. doi:10.1080/17564905.2018.1450471. ISSN 1756-4905. S2CID 158605075.
- ↑ Phillips, Alastair; Stringer, Julian (2007-12-18). Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-33422-3.