A Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors. Alexander Jacoby

      Gojira / Godzilla

      1955 Koi geshō / Love Makeup

      Oen-san / Oen-san / Cry Baby

      Jūjin yukiotoko / Beast Man, Snow Man / Half Human: The Story of the Abominable Snowman

      1956 Wakai ki / Young Tree

      Yakan chūgaku / Night School

      Tōkyō no hito sayōnara / People of Tokyo, Goodbye

      Sora no daikaijū: Radon / Radon, Monster from the Sky / Radon / Rodan

      1957 Kono futari ni sachi are / Good Luck to These Two

      Wakare no chatsumiuta / A Teapicker’s Song of Goodbye

      Waga mune ni niji wa kiezu / A Rainbow Plays in My Heart

      Wakare no chatsumiuta: Shimai hen: Onēsan to yonda hito / A Teapicker’s Song of Goodbye: Sisters Chapter: The Person I Called Sister

      Chikyū bōeigun / The Mysterians / Earth Defense Force (lit.)

      1958 Hanayome sanjūsō / Song for a Bride (lit. Trio for a Bride)

      Bijo to ekitai ningen / The H-Man / Beauty and the Liquid Man (lit.)

      Daikaijū Baran / Baran, Monster from the East / The Great Monster Baran (lit.)

      1959 Kodama wa yondeiru / An Echo Calls You

      Tetsuwan tōshu: Inao monogatari / Inao: Story of an Iron Arm

      Uwayaku, shitayaku, godōyaku / Seniors, Juniors, Co-Workers

      Uchū daisensō / The Great Space War / Battle in Outer Space

      1960 Gasu ningen daiichigō / The First Gas Human / The Human Vapor

      1961 Mosura / Mothra

      Shinku no otoko / The Crimson Man

      1962 Yōsei Gorasu / Gorath, the Mysterious Star / Gorath / Astronaut 1980

      Kingu Kongu tai Gojira / King Kong vs. Godzilla

      1963 Matango / Matango / Matango: Fungus of Terror

      Kaitei gunkan / Atragon: Flying Supersub / Undersea Battleship (lit.)

      1964 Mosura tai Gojira / Mothra vs. Godzilla / Godzilla Fights the Giant Moth / Godzilla vs. the Thing

      Uchū daikaijū Dogora / Dogora / Dagora the Space Monster

      Sandaikaijū: Chikyū saidai no kessen / Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster / Monster of Monsters / The Greatest Battle on Earth

      1965 Furankenshutain tai chitei kaijū / Frankenstein vs. Baragon / Frankenstein vs. the Giant Devil Fish / Frankenstein Conquers the World

      Kaijū daisensō / War of the Monsters / Godzilla vs. Monster Zero / Invasion of the Astros

      1966 Furankenshutain no kaijū: Sanda tai Gaira / Frankenstein’s Monsters: Sanda vs. Gaira / Duel of the Gargantuas

      Oyome ni oide / Come Marry Me

      1967 Kingu Kongu no gyakushū / King Kong Strikes Back / King Kong Escapes

      1968 Kaijū sōshingeki / Destroy All Monsters! / Monster Invasion (lit.) / All Monsters Attack

      1969 Ido zero daisakusen / Latitude Zero / Atragon 2

      Gojira, Minira, Gabara: Ōru kaijū daishingeki / All Monsters Attack / Godzilla’s Revenge / Minya: Son of Godzilla

      1970 Kessen! Nankai no daikaijū / The Space Amoeba / Yog: Monster from Space (lit. Decisive Battle: Great Monster of the South Seas)

      1972 Mirāman / Mirrorman

      1975 Mekagojira no gyakushū / The Terror of Mechagodzilla / Revenge of Mechagodzilla (lit.) / Mechagodzilla vs. Godzilla

      HORIKAWA Hiromichi

      (b. December 28, 1916)

      堀川弘通

      Akira Kurosawa’s assistant on numerous films including Ikiru (1952) and Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai, 1954), Horikawa has never achieved his mentor’s fame. Kurosawa himself scripted his directorial debut, A Story of Fast-Growing Weeds (Asunaro monogatari, 1955), about an adolescent and the first three women in his life. A concern with youthful experience was also visible in Horikawa’s second and third films, Summer Eclipse (Nisshoku no natsu, 1956), a taiyōzoku (“sun tribe”) film based on a Shintarō Ishihara novel, and The Last Day of Oishi (“Genroku Chūshingura: Ōishi saigo no ichinichi” yori: Koto no tsume, 1957), a reworking of the Chūshingura story that focused particularly on the youngest of the participating ronin and his fiancée. Another retelling of a classical Japanese story was the Chikamatsu adaptation Oil Hell Murder (Onnagoroshi abura jigoku, 1957), but Horikawa returned to contemporary subject matter with The Naked General (Hadaka no taishō, 1958), a portrait of mentally handicapped collage artist Kiyoshi Yamashita. In this darkly humorous account of a stubborn non-conformist, Horikawa touched for the first time on the subject of World War II, ironically showing how the artist’s apparent madness enabled him to escape the draft. The melodrama Eternity of Love (Wakarete ikiru toki mo, 1961), tracing a woman’s unhappy marriages and affairs, also unfolded against a wartime backdrop.

      During the sixties, Horikawa made several thrillers: the socially conscious aspects of these films suggest the continuing influence of Kurosawa while also evoking Masaki Kobayashi, whose regular actor Tatsuya Nakadai appeared in The Blue Beast (Aoi yajū, 1960) and Pressure of Guilt (Shiro to kuro, 1963). The former charted the rise and fall of a low-ranking executive who exploits both labor and management, while the latter was a tangled psychological thriller about an attorney who, having strangled his lover, faces a moral dilemma when another man confesses. Later, Goodbye Moscow (Saraba Mosukuwa gurentai, 1968) used the relationship between a Japanese jazz pianist, an American soldier on leave from Vietnam, and a group of young Russian dissidents as a metaphor for Japan’s situation in the Cold War era. The Militarist (Gekidō no Shōwashi: Gunbatsu, 1970) was a critical biopic of General Tōjō, which dramatized the military coup of February 26, 1936, while Sun Above, Death Below (Sogeki, 1968) was a conventional if snappily edited thriller about a doomed hitman.

      By this time, Horikawa was considered Toho’s most reliable director of prestige material, but his seventies work was less noteworthy. He continued to deal with youthful experience in Have Wings on Your Heart (Tsubasa wa kokoro ni tsukete, 1978) and Song of Mutsuko (Mutchan no uta, 1985), both tragedies about terminally ill children. The latter again had a wartime backdrop, as did Horikawa’s last films: War and Flowers (Hana monogatari, 1989) was another account of female experience during the war years, while Asian Blue (Eijian Burū: Ukishima Maru sakon, 1995) focused on the sufferings of Korean forced laborers, in particular those killed in the sinking of a ship carrying them home after Japan’s surrender. Though Horikawa worked consistently with interesting subject matter, his films seem to have been imperfectly realized: Anderson and Richie condemned A Story of Fast-Growing Weeds for not fully developing Kurosawa’s script, Tadao Satō found Goodbye Moscow sentimental despite its political interest, and Joan Mellen criticized The Militarist for political naivety. Nevertheless, some of Horikawa’s films were considered worthy of foreign distribution in the sixties, and they may still merit revival.

      1955 Asunaro monogatari / A Story of Fast-Growing Weeds / Growing

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      1956 Nisshoku no natsu / Summer Eclipse

      1957 “Genroku Chūshingura: Ōishi saigo no ichinichi” yori: Koto no tsume / The Last Day of Oishi / Last Day of Samurai

      Onnagoroshi abura jigoku / Oil Hell Murder / The Prodigal Son

      1958 Hadaka no taishō / The Naked General

      1959 Suzukake no sanpomichi / The Path under the Plantanes

      1960 Kuroi gashū: Aru sararīman no shōgen / The Lost Alibi / Black Book of Paintings: Testimony of a Salaryman (lit.)