Fukasaku Kinji

Auteur or Metteur en scène?

Fukasaku’s 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.

Fukasaku’s 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.

Fukasaku’s Career• With the appointment of Ok

awa 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).

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) i

nclude:• 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)

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

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.

Fukasaku and Toei• Arashi Kanjuro, a kabuki ac

tor 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

Fukasaku and Toei• Kurama Tengu: Ikki Uchi (1

952) Hagiwara Ryo• Kurama Tengu: Shippu Un

mo-zaka (1953)• Kurama Tengu in Danger

(1953)• Kurama Tengu’s Counter A

ttack (1953)• With Arashi Kanjuro

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

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.

Fukasaku and Toei

• The Idle Vassal: the Mysterious Monster House (1955)

• The Idle Vassal: the Mysterious Devil House (1955)

• Starring Ichikawa Utakemon

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.

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).

• Toei’s Jirocho format was taken over by the following Ninkyo series

Fukasaku and Toei• Jirocho Sangokushi (1963)• Jirocho Sangokushi: a Sequ

el (1963)• Jirocho Sangokushi: Part III

(1964)• Jirocho Sangokushi: the Rai

d in Koshu (1965)• All directed by Makino Masa

hiro and starring Tsuruta Koji, Sakuma Yoshiko and Fuji Junko

Fukasaku and Toei

• NINKYO SERIES• Chivalrous Spirit (1957)• The Travelling Raffian (1

958)• Port of Honour (1960)• Collapse of a Boss (196

0)• Number One Young Boss

(1961)• Jirocho to Kotetsu (196

2)

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.

Fukasaku and Toei

• Formulaic melodrama is combined with spectacles and actions

• Showa Zankyo Den (Lives of Showa Gamblers) series (9 films) staring Takakura Ken

Fukasaku and Toei

• Hibotan Bakuto (Red Peony, the Gambler) series 8 films)

• Staring Fuji Junko as the female travelling gambler

Fukasaku and Toei

• Bakuchi Uchi (Travelling Gamblers) series (10 films)

• Staring Tsuruta Koji as the male travelling gambler

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 instea

d flamboyant suits.

Fukasaku and Toei

• Abashiri Bangaichi (Abashiri Prison) series (10 films)

• New Abashiri Bangaichi series (8 films) staring Takakura

Fukasaku’s Films• Fukasaku made 65 films i

n 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.

Fukasaku’s 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.

Fukasaku’s 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.

Fukasaku’s Films• Yata, the Slayer: The Thre

e 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

Fukasaku’s 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 tru

e story, if not in entirety, and shot in a half documentary style.

Fukasaku’s 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 Coppola’s Godfather released in 1972

Fukasaku’s 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)

Fukasaku’s 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.

Fukasaku’s 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)

Fukasaku’s Films• The Doberman Cop

(1977) - action and crime film

• Shogun’s Samurai (1978)

Fukasaku’s 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 w

riter• Crest of Betrayal (1984) - a action, horror combining C

husingura and Yotsuya Kaidan

Fukasaku’s 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.

Fukasaku’s Films

• Principally the maker of violent action filmsParicularly Yakuza films• Unflinching in the depiction of violence and b

rutality• Non-glorified and un-idealized view of yakuza• Hand-held camera and loose composition -

semi-documentary style• Sheer entertainment rather than films with m

essage

Is Fukasaku an auteur?• Is Fukasaku an auteur or a met

teur-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.

Is Fukasaku an auteur?• How about other films.• Great storyteller - a great visualizer of fast-mo

ving stories• Camp and kitsch images in raw colours but n

ot completely• Fast editing but not completely frenetic• His visual styles are halfway between those o

f the auteur and the metteur-en-scène • He could not really develop the visual styles

which would have made him an auteur.