A Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors. Alexander Jacoby

      Waga seishun no irebun / Our Youth’s Eleven

      Nihon no fikusā / Japanese Fixer

      1981 Shikakenin Baian / Baian the Assassin

      Eki / Station

      1983 Izakaya Chōji / Love (lit. Bar Choji)

      1985 Ma no toki / Time of Wickedness

      Yasha / Demon

      1987 Wakarenu riyū / Reason for Not Divorcing

      1989 Shōgun Iemitsu no ranshin: Gekitotsu / Shogun’s Shadow / Gekitotsu: The Insanity of Shogun Iemitsu (lit.)

      Gokudō no onnatachi: Sandaime anego / Yakuza Wives: Third Generation Female Boss

      A un / Buddies (lit. Alpha and Omega)

      1990 Tasumania monogatari / Tasmania Story

      Isan sōzoku / Inheritance

      1991 Don ni natta otoko / The Man Who Became a Don

      1992 Kantsubaki / Winter Camellia

      1994 Shin gokudō no onnatachi: Horetara jigoku / New Yakuza Wives: Hell If You Fall in Love

      1995 Kura / Kura (lit. Storehouse)

      1997 Gendai ninkyōden / A Story of Modern Chivalry

      1999 Poppoya / The Railroad Man

      2001 Hotaru / The Firefly

      2004 Akai tsuki / Red Moon

      2007 Tsukigami / The Haunted Samurai

      FURUMAYA Tomoyuki

      (b. November 14, 1968)

      古厩智之

      One of the most promising of younger Japanese directors, Furumaya made short films in 8 and 16mm formats before winning the PIA Film Festival scholarship to realize his first feature, This Window Is Yours (Kono mado wa kimi no mono, 1995). This story of a teenage romance won praise for its sensitivity to the nuances of adolescent behavior, its way of keeping emotions implicit, and its careful evocation of the details of life in provincial Japan. These qualities were also visible in Furumaya’s semi-autobiographical second film, Bad Company (Mabudachi, 2001), about a trio of delinquents at junior high school. Virtually without major incident, apart from one tragic event, this subtly affecting film captured the beauty of rural Nagano without subsiding into mere prettiness and employed meditative long takes that faintly recalled the work of Hiroshi Shimizu in their way of observing, rather than passing judgment on, the characters.

      Furumaya’s next film, Robocon (Robokon, 2003), also focused on alienated youth: its central character was a disenchanted girl at vocational school who becomes determined to win a robotics competition. In Goodbye, Midori (Sayonara Midori-chan, 2005), Furumaya shifted his focus for the first time to adult relationships, examining the dilemma of a female office worker attracted, despite herself, to an unworthy man. Visually more austere than Bad Company, the film was distinguished by its intelligent awareness of the way in which posture and facial expression reveal subtleties of character. With his detached yet compassionate style, Furumaya may succeed in sustaining a classical Japanese tradition of film drama based in realistic detail and behavioral nuance through the coming decades.

      1991 Sutego no Sutekichi / Sutekichi the Abandoned Child (8mm short)

      Shakunetsu no dojjibōru / Scorching Hot (lit. Red-Hot Dodgeball) (16mm short)

      1992 Hashiruze / Running / Run! (16mm short)

      1994 Tetsu to hagane / Steel Blue (lit. Iron and Steel) (short)

      1995 Kono mado wa kimi no mono / This Window Is Yours (16mm)

      1999 Indies B: Bokusā to tako / Indies B: The Boxer and the Kite (short)

      2001 Mabudachi / Bad Company

      2003 Robokon / Robocon / Robot Competition

      2005 Sayonara Midori-chan / Goodbye Midori

      FUTAGAWA Buntarō

      (June 18, 1899–March 28, 1966)

      二川文太郎

      A specialist in jidai-geki, Futagawa is remembered largely for the silent films he made at Makino Productions in collaboration with popular action hero Tsumasaburō Bandō. Several of these survive: Kageboshi (Edo Kaizokuden: Kagebōshi, 1925) is admired for having introduced a greater psychological depth into a genre hitherto concerned largely with action, while the most famous, Orochi (1925), is considered of importance in establishing the anti-heroic persona of the “nihilist hero” in revolt against society, which would be developed by Daisuke Itō. The film’s melancholy mood was genuinely affecting, though it lacked Itō’s depth of political implication, the hero’s sufferings being the result more of hard luck than of social injustice. Noel Burch has called Futagawa “the epitome of the academic neo-Western director”; however, while his style had a certain classical economy, his preference for staging action scenes in long shot was as characteristically Japanese as were his thematic concerns. It seems, moreover, that he made occasional films in a deliberately experimental mode: the lost When the Gravestone Snores (Boseki ga ibikisuru koro, 1925) was apparently influenced by the then fashionable expressionism of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, Robert Wiene).

      In the thirties, Futagawa worked at Shochiku, where he continued to specialize in period films, often starring the dashing Chōjūrō Hayashi (later renamed Kazuo Hasegawa). However, his sound films were not widely admired, and he retired from direction in 1939. An attempted comeback in the fifties was unsuccessful. Futagawa’s younger brother, Eisuke Takizawa, also worked as a director.

      1923 Shinkirō / Mirage

      1924 Kaiketsu taka / The Mighty Hawk

      Buaku no men / The Devil’s Mask

      Kekkon subekarazu / Don’t Get Married

      Gekkyūbi no yoru no dekigoto (Kyūryōbi no yoru) / Incidents on the Night After Payday (Payday Night)

      Shisen ni tateba / Standing Between Life and Death

      Jōnetsu no hi / Fires of Passion

      Bonnō jigoku / Hell of Desire

      Maen no kiyuru koro / When the Devil-Fire Is Quenched

      Koi no ryōnin / Love Hunter

      Natsuyoimachi shinjū / Double Suicide at Natsuyoimachi

      Kunisada Chūji Shinshū miyako ochi / Chuji Kunisada Leaves the Capital for Shinshu

      Gyakuryū / Retaliation

      1925 Kunisada Chūji / Chuji Kunisada

      Edo kaizokuden: Kagebōshi / Kageboshi (lit. Legend of the Phantom Thief in Edo: The Shadow)

      Boseki ga ibikisuru koro / When the Gravestone Snores

      Aru tonosama no hanashi / A Certain Lord’s Story

      Rantō / Swordfight

      Zoku rantō / Swordfight 2

      Orochi / Orochi / The Serpent

      1926 Enpō kibun: Bijōfu / Strange Story of the Enpo Period: A Handsome Young Man

      Shura hakkō (Daiippen; Dainihen; Dansanpen) / The Pains of Hell (Parts 1, 2, and 3)

      Guren no chimata: Buke katagi / Neighborhood of Foolish Love: Nature of a Samurai Household

      Dondorobori / Muddy Moat

      Teru hi kumoru hi (Daiippen; Dainihen) / Bright Day, Cloudy Day (Parts 1 and 2)

      Kagebōshi torimonochō: Zenpen / Casebooks of the Shadow: Part 1

      1927 Kagebōshi torimonochō: Kōhen / Casebooks of the Shadow: Part 2

      Akuma