A Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors. Alexander Jacoby

goroshi / The Killing of Miyokichi

      1928 Dokuhebi / Poisonous Snake

      Madara hebi / Spotted Snake

      Shinpan Ōoka seidan (Zenpen; Chūhen) / Ooka’s Trial: New Version (Parts 1 and 2)

      Hi no warai / Red Smile

      Kotsuniku / Flesh and Bone

      1929 Taika shinsei / New Dispensation of the Taika Era (co-director)

      Isetsu: Shimizu Ikkaku / Heterodoxy: Ikkaku Shimizu

      Hatamoto Kobushinshū / Carpenter Retainers of the Shogun

      Kunisada Chūji no iji / The Son of the Late Chuji Kunisada

      Katana o nuite / Drawing the Sword

      Araki Mataemon / Mataemon Araki

      Aisuru mono no michi / Way of a Lover

      Zoku kagebōshi: Kyōsō hen / Kageboshi 2: Thirst-Crazed Chapter

      1930 Donfuku dairensen / Fortunate Great Love

      Mōmoku no otōto / Blind Younger Brother

      Kaidan Kasanegafuchi / The Ghost of Kasane Swamp

      Harenchi gaidō / Shameless Heresy

      1931 Kagoya dainagon / Palanquin Bearer and Minister

      Ryakudatsu yomego / Abduction of the Bride

      Nagebushi Yanosuke: Michinoku no maki / Bawdy Song of Yanosuke: Michinoku Reel

      Nagebushi Yanosuke: Edo no maki / Bawdy Song of Yanosuke: Edo Reel

      1932 Yajikita: Bijin sōdōki / Yaji and Kita: Trouble About a Beauty

      Nawanuke Jihei: Shiranami zaifu / Jihei Nawanuke: The Wallet of Shiranami

      Kurama Tengu: Taifū no maki / Kurama Tengu: Typhoon Reel

      Kamiyui Shinzō / Shinzo the Hairdresser

      Tenbare Hisaroku / Hisaroku under Clear Skies

      Adauchi kyōdai kagami / Model Avenging Brothers

      1933 Kōsetsu: Nuretsubame / Rumor: Wet Swallow

      Yatō to seishun / The Night Thief and Youth

      Matagorō kyōdai / The Brothers Matagoro

      Unka no kyōteki / Rivals in Cloud and Mist

      Tenmei hatamotogasa: Kōrui no maki / A Retainer’s Helmet of the Tenmei Era: A Beautiful Woman’s Tears

      1934 Tenmei hatamotogasa: Hareru hi no maki / A Retainer’s Helmet of the Tenmei Era: Brightening Days

      Yarisabi renbo / Love of a Rusted Spear

      Rinzō shusse tabi / Rinzo’s Journey to Success

      Tsujigiri zange / Penitence for the Killing at the Crossroads

      1935 Jingi wa kagayaku / Glory of Honor

      Umon torimonochō: Hanayome jigoku hen / The Casebooks of Detective Umon: A Bride’s Hell

      1936 Iseya koban / Iseya’s Gold

      1937 Ruten: Daiichibu: Honoo / Vicissitudes of Life: Part 1: The Flame

      Ruten: Dainibu: Hoshi / Vicissitudes of Life: Part 2: The Star

      1938 Shunpū Ise monogatari / Tale of the Spring Breeze at Ise

      Isetsu: Hatamoto gonin otoko / Heterodoxy: Five Retainers

      Nagadosu jiai / Competition of Long Swords

      Kimen mikazukitō / Demon-Masked Group of the Crescent Moon

      1939 Chūji tabi nikki / Chuji’s Travel Diary

      Nijibare kaidō / Road under a Rainbow

      1955 Fukushū Jōrurizaka: Onibuse tōge no shūgeki / Revenge at Jorurizaka: Attack at Onibuse Pass

      Fukushū Jōrurizaka: Akatsuki no kessen / Revenge of Jorurizaka: Bloody Battle at Dawn

      GOSHA Hideo

      (February 16, 1929–August 30, 1992)

      五社英雄

      The work of Hideo Gosha inhabits a middle ground between the historical detail and physical realism of jidai-geki and the pure action of chanbara. Initially employed as a television director at Fuji Television, he learned to convey essential plot points economically and to stage sudden climaxes effectively. The success of his most famous TV series, Three Outlaw Samurai (Sanbiki no samurai), earned him an invitation to adapt it as a feature film for Shochiku in 1964. Influenced in style and content by Kurosawa, Gosha’s big screen debut was arguably his best work, combining razor-sharp black and white cinematography with narrative drive and incorporating some trenchant social commentary in its depiction of the ill treatment of farmers by a callous chamberlain.

      This sympathy for the underdog was a recurrent feature of Gosha’s work. In Official Gold (Goyōkin, 1969), the inhabitants of a fishing village are murdered on the orders of a provincial aristocrat to prevent them from bearing witness to the theft of a shipload of the Shogunate’s gold, while the mad dog warrior protagonist of Tenchu (Hitokiri, 1969) is a pawn in a political game, first used, then discarded by his master. These were among Gosha’s most politically acute films, but here as elsewhere, the tone of his work was ultimately nihilistic. In Three Outlaw Samurai, despite the protection of the samurai, the farmers are too fearful to present their petition for better treatment to their lord, while in Tenchu, the anti-hero willingly sacrifices his own life in order to exact revenge on his betrayer.

      Among Gosha’s other sixties films, Samurai Wolf (Kiba Ōkaminosuke, 1966) was a paradoxically terse yet overblown account of the conflict between a hired bodyguard and a hired killer. With its outlandish characterizations and exaggerated imagery, it was more reminscent of a spaghetti Western than an orthodox samurai picture. Secret of the Urn (Tange Sazen: Hien iaigiri, 1966) was an uncharacteristically lighthearted film about the one-eyed, one-armed samurai Sazen Tange; actually a remake of Sadao Yamanaka’s The Pot Worth a Million Ryo (Tange Sazen yowa: Hyakuman-ryō no tsubo, 1935), it lacked the original’s delicate blend of humor and pathos. Cash Calls Hell (Gohiki no shinshi, 1966), a rare gendai-geki, was a superior thriller about a convict on parole who agrees to commit murder at the request of a fellow prisoner. Its New Wave stylistic tics were often overemphatic, but it boasted superb monochrome photography and an impressively brooding lead performance from Tatsuya Nakadai.

      In the seventies, Gosha’s approach became more conventionally generic. The Wolves (Shussho iwai, 1971), set against the historical backdrop of an amnesty granted to criminals at the time of the Showa Emperor’s accession, was an ordinary yakuza story, albeit with a visually striking festival climax. Bandits vs. Samurai Squadron (Kumakiri Nizaemon, 1978) was a bland chanbara. Hunter in the Dark (Yami no kariudo, 1979) was somewhat more individual, with the amnesiac ronin a quintessential Gosha “little man” protagonist, threatened by machinations that he does not understand. Nevertheless, the film’s narrative was excessively convoluted and the characterizations shallow.

      Despite the machismo of these films, Gosha in the eighties acquired something of a reputation as a specialist in stories with strong women as protagonists. Gate of Flesh (Nikutai no mon, 1988) was the fifth adaptation of Taijirō Tamura’s novel about the lives of prostitutes during the Occupation, while Heat Haze (Kagerō, 1991) was a Showa-era revenge saga about a female professional gambler. Also notable among Gosha’s later work were Four Days of Snow and Blood (226, 1989), an account of the attempted military coup of February 26, 1936, and his last film, Oil Hell Murder (Onnagoroshi abura jigoku, 1992), a revenge tragedy derived from Chikamatsu.

      Gosha has a high reputation among devotees of Japanese action genres; Alain Silver has cited Tenchu as “one of the most accomplished examples of the samurai genre since World War II.” Certainly, Gosha had a flair for orchestrating grisly, shocking