Fukasaku Kinji

1
Fukasaku Kinji

• Auteur or Metteur en scène?

2
Fukasakus Career

• Born in 1930, Mito, Ibaragi.
• When Fukasaku was in middle school, his class was
  drafted to work in a ammunition factory, which
  became a target of bombing. A large number of
  his classmates died in the air raid.

3
Fukasakus Career

• Studied at the Department
• of Arts in Nihon University.
• On graduation, he entered
• Toei in 1953 to be an
• assistant director.
• Toei, the youngest studio
• among the majors, was at this
• time not a
• prosperous company.

4
Fukasakus Career

• With the appointment of Okawa Hiroshi as
  president, Toei radically streamlined its
  production, limited its production strictly to
  genre pictures, and specialized in low-budget,
  entertainment films.
• On average, assistant directors in Toei worked
  for 8 to 10 films a year (4 to 5 in other
  studios).

5
Fukasaku and Toei

• Staff worked for 10 films instead of 4 to 5
  pictures in other studios.
• Long overtime work expected.
• Low-budget entertainment movies (genres) include
• Chanbara (sword fight) movies and yakuza or
  ninkyo (a honourable outlaw who helps the
  oppressed and defeats the corrupted, and put giri
  (duty and loyalty) before ninjo (personal feeling)

6
Fukasaku and Toei

• Once a film turned out to be successful at box
  office, it was remade or serialized.
• A similar storyline, the repetition of the same
  filming method, the use of the same staff, and
  featuring the same stars.
• Success ? the creation of audience expectation ?
  satisfaction of this expectation
• FORMULA for remake and serialization

7
Fukasaku and Toei

• Kurama Tengu
• A series of popular novel by Osaragi Jiro with
  its hero inspired by a Noh play
• Brought up by a tengu (a mythical creature with
  supernatural power), Kurata Denzen (a pseudonym)
  is a master swordsman who beats the evil and help
  the good.

8
Fukasaku and Toei

• Arashi Kanjuro, a kabuki actor turned movie star
• All the significant attributes of Kurama Tengu
  are associated with Ara Kan black hood, two
  swords, and casual kimono with heraldry.
• Arashi created his own production company
  specializing Kurama Tengu
• Toei bought Arashi and his popular vehicle

9
Fukasaku and Toei

• Kurama Tengu Ikki Uchi (1952) Hagiwara Ryo
• Kurama Tengu Shippu Unmo-zaka (1953)
• Kurama Tengu in Danger (1953)
• Kurama Tengus Counter Attack (1953)
• With Arashi Kanjuro

10
Fukasaku and Toei

• Kurama Tengu the First Episode (1956)
• Kurama Tengu Kakubei Jishi (1957)
• Kurama Tengu Goyo Toimon (1957)
• Kurama Tengu (1959)
• With Azuma Chiyonosuke

11
Fukasaku and Toei

• HATAMOTO TAIKUTSU OTOKO SERIES
• Based on the popular novels of Sasaki Mitsuzo
  featuring Saotome Shusuinosuke, an vassal and
  excellent swordsman, who is tall, handsome, idle,
  but hates corruption and makes the evil pay for
  their sin and crime.

12
Fukasaku and Toei

• The Idle Vassal the Mysterious Monster House
  (1955)
• The Idle Vassal the Mysterious Devil House
  (1955)
• Starring Ichikawa Utakemon

13
Fukasaku and Toei

• Jirocho Sangokushi - a very popular series of
  films based on a long novel of Murakami Motozo,
  featuring Shimizu no Jirocho as eponimous hero.
• Jirocho is a half-fictitious Ninkyo or Kyoukaku,
  a man of honour and duty who helps the weak and
  defeat the powerful.

14
Fukasaku and Toei

• First made into a series and popularized by Toho
  Studios (9 films in the 60s) but resurrected by
  Toei Studios (4 films).
• Toeis Jirocho format was taken over by the
  following Ninkyo series

15
Fukasaku and Toei

• Jirocho Sangokushi (1963)
• Jirocho Sangokushi a Sequel (1963)
• Jirocho Sangokushi Part III (1964)
• Jirocho Sangokushi the Raid in Koshu (1965)
• All directed by Makino Masahiro and starring
  Tsuruta Koji, Sakuma Yoshiko and Fuji Junko

16
Fukasaku and Toei

• NINKYO SERIES
• Chivalrous Spirit (1957)
• The Travelling Raffian (1958)
• Port of Honour (1960)
• Collapse of a Boss (1960)
• Number One Young Boss (1961)
• Jirocho to Kotetsu (1962)

17
Fukasaku and Toei

• In the 50s and 60s, Kyoto Toei mainly specialized
  in Ninkyo movies, which features a stoic and
  honourable outlaw hero torn between his loyalty
  and obligation to his boss and his emotional and
  personal commitment.
• Settings are in the late 19th or the early 20th
  century.
• Characters are kimono-clad and their values and
  life styles are more traditional.

18
Fukasaku and Toei

• Formulaic melodrama is combined with spectacles
  and actions
• Showa Zankyo Den (Lives of Showa Gamblers) series
  (9 films) staring Takakura Ken

19
Fukasaku and Toei

• Hibotan Bakuto (Red Peony, the Gambler) series 8
  films)
• Staring Fuji Junko as the female travelling
  gambler

20
Fukasaku and Toei

• Bakuchi Uchi (Travelling Gamblers) series (10
  films)
• Staring Tsuruta Koji as the male travelling
  gambler

21
Fukasaku and Toei

• In the 60s, Toei Tokyo mainly specialized in
  yakuza movies, which feature a stoic and
  honourable yakuza hero who fights almost single
  handedly against his corrupt rivals or even his
  corrupt boss.
• Settings are normally in contemporary cities.
• Character no longer wear kimono, but instead
  flamboyant suits.

22
Fukasaku and Toei

• Abashiri Bangaichi (Abashiri Prison) series (10
  films)
• New Abashiri Bangaichi series (8 films) staring
  Takakura

23
Fukasakus Films

• Fukasaku made 65 films in his 42 year career as
  director.
• In early days, he mainly made action, war and
  yakuza films.
• He displayed a great talent in creating violent
  action scenes.

24
Fukasakus Films

• Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) was shot with Richard
  Fleischer. Fukasaku took over the directing of
  Japanese scenes from Kurosawa Akira, who was
  sacked by the studios.

25
Fukasakus Films

• Under the Flag of the Rising Sun (1972) - an
  anti-war film about a war widow who tries to
  clear the name of her disgraced husband. He was
  court- martialed for desertion and executed.

26
Fukasakus Films

• Yata, the Slayer The Three Mad Dog Brothers
  (1972) - about a young reckless yakuza who has
  come out of gaol expecting to be promoted to a
  higher rank. He discovers that he is betrayed by
  his boss.
• De-idealization of yakuza
• Corrupt and disenchanted world of modern yakuza
  families

27
Fukasakus Films

• The Yakuza Papers Battles without Honour and
  Humanity (1973)
• Ground breaking films in the Yakuza film genre
• Jitsuroku ( true document) films based on a
  true story, if not in entirety, and shot in a
  half documentary style.

28
Fukasakus Films

• Portrayal of the post-war yakuza not as the heirs
  to their own time-honoured codes but as members
  of corrupt, ruthless, treacherous thugs.
• De-idealization of hakuza, deconstruction of
  genre idioms.
• Strong influence from Francis Ford Coppolas
  Godfather released in 1972

29
Fukasakus Films

• The Yakuza Papers Deadly Fight in Hiroshima
  (1973)
• The Yakuza Papers Proxy War (1973)
• The Yakuza Papers Police Tactics (1974)
• The Yakuza Papers Final Episode (1974)

30
Fukasakus Films

• Police Graveyard (1976) - A police investigator
  cracks down on business, but he realizes the
  police are in negotiations with certain factions.
  He sides with his own syndicate of choice.

31
Fukasakus Films

• Fukasaku moves on making very different kinds of
  movies historical drama, samurai film, police
  thriller, SF, disaster film, a serious drama
  about aging, and Chusingura
• Virus (1980) - SF, disaster film (destruction of
  the Earth by mysterious virus)

32
Fukasakus Films

• The Doberman Cop (1977) - action and crime film
• Shoguns Samurai (1978)

33
Fukasakus Films

• Samurai Reincarnation (1981) - action, horror set
  in the mediaeval period.
• Gate of Youth (1981) - a growing-up youth film
• Shanghai Rhapsody (1984) - a drama, musical
• House on Fire (1984) - a drama on a
  self-destructive writer
• Crest of Betrayal (1984) - a action, horror
  combining Chusingura and Yotsuya Kaidan

34
Fukasakus Films

• Battle Royal (2000) - Ninth grade students are
  taken to a small isolated island with a map, food
  and various arms. They have to fight each other
  for three days until the last one remains and are
  forced to wear a special collar which will
  explode when they break a rule.

35
Fukasakus Films

• Principally the maker of violent action films
• Paricularly Yakuza films
• Unflinching in the depiction of violence and
  brutality
• Non-glorified and un-idealized view of yakuza
• Hand-held camera and loose composition -
  semi-documentary style
• Sheer entertainment rather than films with
  message

36
Is Fukasaku an auteur?

• Is Fukasaku an auteur or a metteur-en-scène?
• Worked within genre films and made films on the
  request of his studios, Toei.
• Certain atueuristic quality in his Yakuza and
  action films - hyper-realistic view on yakuza and
  uncompromising depiction of violence.
• Reinventing genre conventions.

37
Is Fukasaku an auteur?

• How about other films.
• Great storyteller - a great visualizer of
  fast-moving stories
• Camp and kitsch images in raw colours but not
  completely
• Fast editing but not completely frenetic
• His visual styles are halfway between those of
  the auteur and the metteur-en-scène
• He could not really develop the visual styles
  which would have made him an auteur.