A Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors. Alexander Jacoby

neko rokku: Sekkusu hantā / Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter

      Nora neko rokku: Mashin animaru / Stray Cat Rock: Machine Animal

      1971 Otoko no sekai / A Man’s World

      Soshiki bōryoku: Ryūketsu no kōsō / Bloody Feud

      1972 Sengoku rokku: Hayate no onnatachi / Sengoku Rock: Female Warriors / The Naked Seven

      1973 Joshū sasori: 701-gō uramibushi / Female Convict Scorpion: Number 701’s Song of Hate

      1974 Sukeban Deka: Dāti Marī / Girl Boss Detective: Dirty Mary

      1976 Okasu! / Rape!

      Bōkō: Kirisaki Jakku / Assault! Jack the Ripper

      1977 Reipu 25-ji: Bōkan / Rape: 25 Hours of Sexual Assault

      Maruhi hanemūn: Bōkō ressha / Secret Honeymoon: Assault Train

      1978 Osou!! / Attack!!

      Erochikkuna kankei / Erotic Liaisons

      Yaru! / Rampage! / Outrage! /

       Do It!

      Kawajan hankōzoku / Leather Jacket Rebellious Tribe

      1982 Kaseki no kōya / Fossil Plain / Petrified Wilderness

      1987 Abunai deka / Dangerous Detectives

      1994 Ressun / Lesson

      HASEGAWA Kazuhiko

      (b. January 5, 1946)

      長谷川和彦

      Hasegawa’s two features rank among the most provocative Japanese films to have emerged during the seventies. After some years spent at Nikkatsu as an assistant director and scriptwriter to Roman Porno directors such as Tatsumi Kumashiro, he made his debut, the ATG-produced Youth to Kill (Seishun no satsujinsha, 1976), an explosive account of a young man who murders his parents. Filming in a mixture of icy long takes and edgy montage, eliciting performances of devastating intensity from his actors, Hasegawa crafted a piercing study of alienation, fixed in the context of the disintegration of traditional Japanese family structures as the country modernized.

      Three years later, at Toho, Hasegawa directed The Man Who Stole the Sun (Taiyō o nusunda otoko, 1979), about an eccentric science teacher who holds Tokyo to ransom with a nuclear bomb constructed in his flat. Although in its later scenes the film became a relatively conventional action movie, with car chases and implausible climactic twists, the early sequences, with their skillful balance of suspense and black comedy, were remarkable. Moreover, though some of the more gimmicky aspects of Hasegawa’s style now feel very much of their particular time, the theme of a lone individual armed with weapons of mass destruction seems unnervingly contemporary.

      Hasegawa’s vision was extremely dark: his work focused on characters totally alienated from society. At the end of both his films, his anti-heroes have cheated death and eluded justice, but have no plausible future. Hasegawa hoped to continue his examination of people rebelling violently against conventional society with a project about the 1972 Asama Sansō Red Army hostage crisis; regrettably, this was never realized. Since the seventies, Hasegawa has devoted himself mainly to encouraging younger directors through his foundation of the Directors’ Company, though he also acted for Seijun Suzuki in Yumeji (1991). The power of his work, coupled with his subsequent unexpected retirement from cinema, has earned Hasegawa something of the cult status enjoyed in America by Terrence Malick, also the maker of two distinctive films during the seventies. Indeed, Youth to Kill had certain similarities in plot to Malick’s own debut, Badlands (1973). Sadly, Hasegawa, unlike Malick, has never subsequently returned to direction.

      1976 Seishun no satsujinsha / Youth to Kill / Young Murderer

      1979 Taiyō o nusunda otoko / The Man Who Stole the Sun

      HASHIGUCHI Ryōsuke

      (b. July 13, 1962)

      橋口亮輔

      A subtle dramatist and chronicler of gay subculture in Japan, Hashiguchi won the PIA Film Festival scholarship for his short film, A Secret Evening (Yūbe no himitsu, 1989), and thus was able to fund his first low-budget feature, A Touch of Fever (Hatachi no binetsu, 1993). This bleak yet compassionate story of the lives of teenage hustlers in Tokyo was followed by Like Grains of Sand (Nagisa no Shindobaddo, 1995), an appealingly quirky rites-of-passage movie about a high school boy’s crush on his best friend. Both films were intelligent examinations of the fluidity of youthful sexual identity. Hashiguchi’s next work was Hush (Hasshu, 2001), a melancholy comedy about the triangular relationship between a closeted, thirty-something gay man, his partner, and the unhappy woman who wants him to father her child. Looser and freer in style than his earlier films, it hinted that homosexuality might be liberating in the context of Japan’s restrictive family structures.

      Hashiguchi’s work has proved admirable for its depth of characterization and delicacy of approach. He elicits subtle performances from his actors, using an austere technique which employs long takes, often without camera movement, to record details of gesture, posture, and intonation, thereby suggesting depths of feeling and motivation which are not verbally expressed. In consequence, his films paradoxically seem both dispassionate and intimate. His impartial, observant method respects the ambiguities of human behavior, acknowledging the gulfs between people and the impossibility of complete understanding. The viewer’s first impressions of his characters are often misleading: thus, in A Touch of Fever and Like Grains of Sand, the people who initially seem the most assured turn out ultimately to be the most insecure, while Hush deftly charted the shifting balance of power between lovers, friends, and family members.

      Hashiguchi’s stories have striven to avoid pat dramatic effects, preferring to mirror the untidiness of real life. The endings of his first two features were remarkably inconclusive, and much of the power of Hush lay in its unpredictable switches between humor and tragedy (as in the sudden death of the protagonist’s brother). Hashiguchi’s non-judgmental sympathy for flawed individuals has made him one of the most engaging Japanese directors of recent years. It is a matter of regret that he has not been more prolific, especially as he seems intent on exploring new territory: at the time of writing, he had just completed his fourth feature, the first to focus primarily on heterosexual characters.

      1982 Reberu 7 + α/ Level Seven + Alpha (8mm short)

      Sansetto / Sunset (8mm short)

      1983 Rara . . . 1981–1983 (8mm shorts)

      Fa (8mm short)

      1984 Shōnen no kuchibue / A Boy’s Whistle (8mm short)

      1985 Hyururu (8mm)

      1986 Mirāman hakusho 1986 / Mirrorman’s White Paper 1986 (8mm short)

      1989 Yūbe no himitsu / A Secret Evening / The Secret of Last Night (8mm short)

      1993 Hatachi no binetsu / A Touch of Fever / Slight Fever of a 19-Year-Old (16mm)

      1995 Nagisa no Shindobaddo / Like Grains of Sand

      2001 Hasshu! / Hush!

      HATANAKA Ryōha

      (b. May 21, 1877; d. 1963, precise date unknown)

      畑中蓼坡

      Primarily associated with the stage, Hatanaka trained as an actor in New York before returning to Japan in 1918, where he joined the theatrical company of actress Sumako Matsui, a pioneer of Western-style shingeki theater in Japan. After her suicide, he continued to work in shingeki, appearing in such plays as Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. His output as a filmmaker was limited, comprising only four films. Of these the most famous today is Winter Camellias (Kantsubaki, 1921), a melodrama, extremely well-acted by Masao Inoue and Yaeko Mizutani, about an elderly miller who kills his daughter’s disreputable suitor when he plans to rob her employers. In this film, Hatanaka combined Western and Japanese elements: