A Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors. Alexander Jacoby

Ai yo hoshi to tomo ni / Love, Live with the Stars!

      1948 Ten no yūgao / Heaven’s Evening Glory

      1949 Ryūsei / Shooting Star

      Daitokai no kao / Face of the Big City

      1950 Sasameyuki / The Makioka Sisters (lit. A Light Snowfall)

      Aizenka / Scent of Enlightenment

      1951 Nozokareta ashi / The Leg That Was Peeped At

      Tsuki yori no haha / Mother from the Moon

      1952 Ōzora no chikai / Oath of Heaven

      Watashi wa Shiberiya no horyo datta / I Was a Siberian POW

      Otome no honnō: Bōto hachinin musume / Young Woman’s Instinct: 8 Girls and a Boat

      1953 Onna to iu shiro: Mari no maki / A Castle Called Woman: Mari’s Reel

      Onna to iu shiro: Yūko no maki / A Castle Called Woman: Yuko’s Reel

      Koibito no iru machi / Town of Lovers

      Senkan Yamato / Battleship Yamato

      1954 Shunshuku Oden no kata: Edo-jō enjō / The Desirable Lady Oden: Great Fire of Edo Castle

      Nihon yaburezu / Japan Undefeated / Immortal Japan

      1955 Seishun kaidan / Ghost Story of Youth

      Hana shinju / Flower Pearl

      Hanran / Rebellion

      1956 Daihachi kanbō / Cell No. 8

      Iro zange / Penitence for Lust

      Nikutai no mitsuyu / People Smuggling

      1957 Saigo no totsugeki / The Last Charge

      Madamu / Madame

      Suashi no musume / The Barefoot Girl

      Mebana / The Awakening (lit. Female Flower)

      1958 Shundeini / The Story of a Nun

      Unga / The Flow / The Canal (lit.)

      Ginza no sabaku / Desert in Ginza / Wasteland of a Metropolis

      Ōsaka no kaze / Wind of Osaka

      1959 Kamen no onna / Masked Woman

      Nirenjū no Tetsu / “Double-Barreled” Tetsu

      Uwaki no kisetsu / Season of Affairs

      1960 Kizudarake no okite / Tarnished Rule

      Shizukana datsugokusha / The Quiet Fugitive

      1961 Daishusse monogatari / Story of Great Success

      Inochi no asa / Morning of Life / Dawn of a Canvas

      ADACHI Masao

      (b. May 5, 1939)

      足立正生

      Adachi’s career testifies to the opportunities which “pink” cinema provided for the expression of dissident attitudes. He had achieved notice as a student filmmaker collaborating on such creative experimental films as The Lacquered Bowl (Wan, 1961), a tragedy set in an isolated village. From 1966 to 1971, he worked for Kōji Wakamatsu’s production company, scripting some of Wakamatsu’s own works, and directing a sequence of “pink” films in which sexual titillation was secondary to political commentary advanced from a far-left perspective. Sex Play (Seiyūgi, 1968) charted the personal and ideological entanglements of two groups of leftist students, drawing imprecise parallels between sexual and political liberation. Female Student Guerrillas (Jogakusei gerira, 1969) took this theme to an extreme in its account of the violent revolutionary activities of a group of students in the mountains. The film’s portrayal of their brutalities was unenlightening, but there were suggestive moments; the opening and closing shots of Mount Fuji—the Shochiku logo—seemed not only to demolish a national symbol, but also to mock the studio system.

      Although rough-and-ready in execution, these films were visually inventive, revealing the influence of Jean-Luc Godard in their use of such distancing devices as onscreen text and switches from black and white to color. More mature in theme and somewhat more professional in style was Prayer of Ejaculation: 15-Year-Old Prostitute (Funshutsu kigan: 15-sai no baishunfu, 1971), an austere, affecting examination of the tragic life and suicide of a teenage prostitute, in which Adachi’s political concerns seemed more directly anchored in the realities of individual experience. The hypocrisy of the adult world was suggested by the character of the middle-aged teacher who begins an affair with the heroine, while images of tanks in the streets hinted at a wider context. Outside the “pink” arena, Adachi made AKA Serial Killer (Rakushō: Renzoku shasatsuma, 1969), an admired documentary, which recorded the locations that must have been visited by teenage serial killer Norio Nagayama before he committed his crimes.

      In 1971, Adachi journeyed with Wakamatsu to the Middle East, visiting territory disputed between Israel and her Arab neighbors. Their encounters with a group of Palestinian guerrillas and interviews conducted in Beirut with artists, refugees, hijackers, and others, formed the basis of a documentary, Red Army–PFLP–Declaration of World War (Sekigun–PFLP–Sekai sensō sengen, 1971), screenings of which were restricted by pressure from the Japanese police. Adachi returned in 1975 to Beirut, where he lived for more than two decades, acting as a spokesman for the Japanese Red Army in Lebanon. In 1997, he was arrested and deported on the orders of the Lebanese government and, on returning to Japan, spent two years in prison. After his release, he documented his life in an autobiographical book, Film/Revolution (Eiga/Kakumei, 2003), and took steps to restart his directorical career. Prisoner/Terrorist (Yūheisha: Terorisuto, 2007) controversially charted the ill-treatment in Israeli captivity of Kōzō Okamoto, one of the perpetrators of the 1972 Lod Airport Massacre. This lengthy, repetitious, and rather amateurish work was not a particularly distinguished comeback: a fact that is doubly regrettable, since Adachi’s own experiences would certainly offer fascinating material for drama or documentary.

      1961 Wan / The Lacquered Bowl (16mm short; co-director)

      1963 Sa’in / The Sealed Vagina (co-director)

      1966 Datai / Abortion

      Hinin kakumei / The Birth Control Revolution

      1967 Gingake / The Galaxy

      1968 Sei chitai / Sex Zone

      Seiyūgi / Sex Play

      1969 Jogakusei gerira / Female Student Guerrillas / The High School Girls’ Revolt

      Ryakushō: Renzoku shasatsuma / AKA Serial Killer

      1970 Sakarame: Mugen jigoku / Woman in Revolt: Phantasmagoric Hell

      1971 Funshutsu kigan: 15-sai no baishunfu / Prayer of Ejaculation: 15-Year-Old Prostitute

      Sekigun–PFLP–Sekai sensō sengen / Red Army–PFLP–Declaration of World War (co-director)

      2007 Yūheisha: Terorisuto / Prisoner / Terrorist

      AOYAMA Shinji

      (b. July 13, 1964)

      青山真治

      Aoyama’s work resembles that of Kiyoshi Kurosawa (also a former student at Rikkyō University of film theorist Shigehiko Hasumi) in its offbeat approach to generic motifs. The gulf between his nineties exploitation films and his twenty-first-century art movies is more apparent than real: his recent, more rarefied work has drawn inspiration, at several removes, from thrillers and science fiction, while his early genre films borrowed the stylistic attributes of art movies. In such offbeat gangster films as Helpless (1996) and Wild Life (Wild Life: Jump into the Dark, 1997) he used extended sequence shots and slow, meditative camera movements to record not only violent action, but also the dead spots in between: snacks in cafes and restaurants, morning showers, journeys, time spent waiting and doing nothing. The individuality