Tamaki Katori | |
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香取環 | |
Born | |
Died | 12 October 2015 76) | (aged
Tamaki Katori (香取環, 21 October 1938 – 12 October 2015) was a Japanese actress best known for her appearances in "pink film" during the 1960s and early 1970s. [1] Katori was the star of Flesh Market (1962), the first of these softcore pornographic films made in Japan. [2] [3] With over 600 film credits between 1962 and 1972, she was one of the most prolific Japanese adult film actresses of the 1960s, and became known as the "Pink Princess" of the first wave of pink films. [3] [4]
Tamaki Katori was born in 1938. After being chosen as Kumamoto's entry in the Miss Universe Kumamoto beauty pageant, Katori was hired by Japan's oldest major film studio, Nikkatsu. [3]
Katori was still acting in supporting roles at Nikkatsu when she appeared in director Satoru Kobayashi's controversial 1962 film, Flesh Market . The first Japanese film to contain nudity (director Seijun Suzuki's Gate of Flesh , made for Nikkatsu in 1964, would become the first mainstream Japanese film to contain nude scenes), [5] Flesh Market was shut down by the police and censored before it could be re-released. [6] Officially considered the first pink film—the softcore pornographic genre which would dominate Japan's domestic cinema in the 1960s and 1970s [7] -- Flesh Market became a huge box-office success. Even with the limited distribution it received as an independent production, Flesh Market, which was made for 8 million yen, took in over 100 million yen. [3]
At Nikkatsu, Katori continued playing supporting roles, notably in several early films directed by future pink film master, Kōji Wakamatsu. In his pre-pink days at Nikkatsu, from 1963 to 1965, Wakamatsu made 20 low-budget exploitation movies based on current events such as sensational crimes and disasters. [8] Though at first the work was steady, Katori was barely surviving on the bit-part wages from Nikkatsu. When the major film studios started facing a decline in audiences, they began cutting back in film output. [9] Katori's income suffered as well.
In the years after Flesh Market's release, several independent studios began specializing in the new pink film genre that had sprung up in the wake of that film's success. When one of these studios was willing to give Katori a contract to star in their pink films, she accepted the offer. She later explained, "They offered me 20,000 yen a movie. It was an incredible sum in those days. I hadn't been able to make it in mainstream movies because people said with my baby face and big boobs I was unbalanced, but those attributes turned out to be exactly what the pink movie business was looking for." [3]
At Aoi Eiga studio, established in 1966 to specialize in these low-budget and profitable Pink films, Katori often worked in the sensationalistic and exploitative films of director Giichi Nishihara. Nishihara's films of the 1960s and 1970s would lead critics to call him both "Japan's sleaziest movie-maker," [10] and "a cult favorite among devotees of extreme cinema." [11] In Staircase of Sex (1968) Nishihara starred Katori with two foreign models in an attempt to cash in on the exotic appeal of the Caucasian performers. [12] Allmovie critic Robert Firsching comments on her work for the director at this studio, "Katori... deserves some sort of medal for valor after allowing Nishihara and Aoi Eiga studios to have her brutally raped five times in four films." [13]
Early in his career, "Pillar of Pink" director Mamoru Watanabe collaborated with Atsushi Yamatoya-- Seijun Suzuki's screenwriter on Branded to Kill —in several films. Katori starred in the team's 1969 film Women Hell Song: Man-Killing Benten, an atypical pink film inspired by Toei's Red Peony Gambler series. Jasper Sharp singles out a scene in which Katori makes love in an abandoned temple, as one of the most striking set pieces in the pink film genre. [4]
Katori worked with Kōji Wakamatsu again in the late 1960s and early 1970s, after he had left Nikkatsu to form his own production company. In the Masao Adachi-scripted Sex Jack (1970), Katori appears as the lone female member of a group of anti-government radical students who plan to assassinate the prime minister and hijack a plane to North Korea. Shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1971, French censors claimed the film was "anti-social". [14] One of Katori's final films with Wakamatsu was Sex Family (1971), which starred future Nikkatsu Roman Porno queen, Junko Miyashita. [15]
A leading actress of the first-wave of the Pink film from 1964 to 1972, a period which was dominated by independent studios, Katori retired from acting just as her old employer, Nikkatsu, was taking over the genre and establishing the second period of Pink film, the Roman Porno era.
After retirement from film, Katori was married to actor Jun Funado for seven years. [3] After they divorced, she married Toshio Okuwaki, director of such pink films as Bed Dance (1967), which featured an early appearance by Naomi Tani. [16] Okuwaki had been Katori's director in several of her own pink film appearances. A third husband moved with her back to her hometown of Kumamoto, where he went to work for the pharmaceutical company Katori's father had owned. Though she gained a child from this marriage, she was eventually divorced again." [3]
After her third divorce, Katori decided to support herself. She first ran a gasoline station, and, as of 2006, was running a company canteen. Reflecting on her role as a pioneering pink film star, Katori said, "I enjoyed my acting, but I never really got used to the atmosphere of the pink movie business." However, she added, "I've got no regrets about my time in the entertainment world. I'd still go back there now to perform if there was a part for this old girl." [3]
Three films that Katori had made in 1969 with her second husband, Toshio Okuwaki were shown at the 2003 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival. [16] In September 2009, the 1960s careers of Katori and director Giichi Nishihara—working together and separately—were the subject of a retrospective at the Kobe Planet Film Archive. [17] She died in 2015.
In Japan, Pink film refers to movies produced by independent studios that includes nudity or deals with sexual content. This encompasses everything from dramas to action thrillers and exploitation film features. Many pink films would be analogous to erotic thrillers, e.g. Fatal Attraction, Fifty Shades of Grey, Basic Instinct, 9½ Weeks.
Kōji Wakamatsu was a Japanese film director who directed such pinku eiga films as Ecstasy of the Angels and Go, Go, Second Time Virgin. He also produced Nagisa Ōshima's controversial film In the Realm of the Senses (1976). He has been called "the most important director to emerge in the pink film genre," and one of "Japan's leading directors of the 1960s."
Naomi Tani is a Japanese pink film actress who is best known for her appearances in Nikkatsu's Roman Porno films with an S&M theme during the 1970s.
Masaru Konuma was a Japanese film director known for his Roman Porno films for Nikkatsu during the 1970s.
Yasuharu Hasebe was a Japanese film director best known for his movies in the "Violent pink" subgenre of the Pink film, such as Assault! Jack the Ripper (1976), Rape! (1976), Rape! 13th Hour (1977) and Raping! (1978). Earlier genre films directed by Hasebe include Black Tight Killers (1966) and the Alleycat Rock series (1970).
Giichi Nishihara, also known as Shirō Sekiya, was a Japanese film director, screenwriter, producer and actor best known for his low-budget and sensationalistic pink films made for his Aoi Eiga studios in the 1960s and 1970s. He has been called both "Japan's sleaziest movie-maker," and "a cult favorite among devotees of extreme cinema."
Chūsei Sone was a Japanese film director known for his stylish and popular Roman Porno films for Nikkatsu, particularly the first two installments of the Angel Guts series. Despite a somewhat uneven career, many mainstream critics consider Sone the best of Nikkatsu's Roman Porno directors.
Noriko Tatsumi is a Japanese actress known primarily for her appearances in pink films of the 1960s. During the "First Wave" of pink film, Tatsumi became known as the first "Queen" of Japanese softcore sex movies, a title which she held from 1967 through 1970. She most often appeared in the films of the World Eiga and Nihon Cinema studios, and is best known for her work with director Kōji Seki, especially Whore (1967) and Erotic Culture Shock (1969). She also appeared in director and Seijun Suzuki script-writer, Atsushi Yamatoya's influential 1967 cult film, Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands.
Satoru Kobayashi was a Japanese film director most famous for directing the first pink film, the type of softcore pornographic films that became the most prolific film genre in Japan during the 1960s and 1970s. Japanese sources claim that Kobayashi directed over 400 pink films between 1960 and 1990, making him possibly the most prolific Japanese film director.
Mamoru Watanabe was a Japanese film director, screenwriter and actor, known for his work in the pink film genre. Along with directors Genji Nakamura and Banmei Takahashi, Watanabe was known as one of the "Three Pillars of Pink".
Kan Mukai a.k.a. Hiroshi Mukai and Patrick Kan was a Japanese film director, cinematographer, producer and screenwriter, known for his pioneering work in the pink film genre. In the realm of pink cinema, Japanese critics have estimated that Mukai is "the only serious rival of Kōji Wakamatsu." As a producer, Mukai helped the early careers of many prominent directors, including Hisayasu Satō and Academy-Award winner Yōjirō Takita. In his career, he directed nearly 200 films and produced approximately 500.
Apartment Wife: Affair in the Afternoon a.k.a. From 3 to Sex is a 1971 Japanese film in Nikkatsu's Roman Porno series. The first film in this successful new direction for the studio, it was directed by Shōgorō Nishimura and starred Kazuko Shirakawa.
Naked SevenakaSengoku Rock: Female WarriorsandWarring States Rock: Gale-Force Women is a 1972 Japanese film in Nikkatsu's Roman porno series, directed by Yasuharu Hasebe and starring Mari Tanaka.
Banmei Takahashi is a Japanese film director. Takahashi started his career in the pink film industry, making his directorial debut in 1972 with Escaped Rapist Criminal. Due to a disagreement with his producer, Takahashi quit the film industry for a couple years. He joined pink film pioneer Kōji Wakamatsu's production studio in 1975, working as a script-writer until Wakamatsu produced Takahashi's second film, Delinquent File: Juvenile Prostitution (1976). For the next few years Takahashi averaged five films annually at Wakamatsu's studio, until Takahashi left to start his own production company in 1979.
Modern Female Ninja: Flesh HellakaInferno of the Flesh is a 1968 Japanese pink film directed by Kan Mukai. It is in the part-color format which was used in pink films in the late 1960s and early 1970s before full-color was made standard with the introduction of Nikkatsu's Roman porno series.
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.
Bed Dance (ベッドダンス) is a 1967 Japanese pink film directed by Toshio Okuwaki for World Eiga. One of the director's most praised films, it features an early appearance by Naomi Tani.
Million Film (ミリオンフィルム) was one of the early independent studios which produced pink films. Along with OP Eiga, Shintōhō Eiga, Kantō and Kōji Wakamatsu's production studio, Million Film was one of the most influential on the genre during its first decade. Many of the most prominent directors and performers in the pink film genre worked for Million Film.
OP Eiga (オーピー映画), also known as Ōkura Eiga (大蔵映画) or Okura Pictures, is the largest and one of the oldest independent Japanese studios which produce and distribute pink films. It was founded in 1961 by Mitsuru Ōkura, former president of film studio Shintōhō. Along with Shintōhō Eiga, Kantō, Million Film, and Kōji Wakamatsu's production studio, Ōkura was one of the most influential studios on the pink film genre. Among the many notable pink films released by the studio are Satoru Kobayashi's Flesh Market (1962), the first film in the pink film genre.
Flesh Market is a 1962 Japanese film directed by Satoru Kobayashi and starring Tamaki Katori. It is generally recognized as the first movie in the pink film genre.
According to some counts, from 1965 to 1973 pink movies amounted to as much as half of Japan's total domestic film product.
奥脇敏夫監督...ピンク映画第1号女優香取環と結婚した男