FUJITA Toshiya

(January 16, 1932–August 29, 1997)

藤田敏八

Fujita is ironically best-known in the West for one of his least personal films, the overblown, ultra-violent action movie Lady Snowblood (Shurayuki hime, 1973), which charted a young woman’s quest for revenge on the men who murdered her father and raped her mother. Though featuring a memorably icy star performance from Meiko Kaji and filled with striking color effects, the film was distinctly heavy-handed in approach and barely questioned the eye-for-an-eye morality espoused by its heroine. Its sequel, Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance (Shurayuki hime: Urami renka, 1974), displayed a certain political edge in its examination of class conflicts during the Meiji era, but its analysis was compromised by the crudities of its exploitation format.

Fujita had begun his career working with similar exploitation material at Nikkatsu, where he contributed two installments to the Stray Cat Rock (Nora neko rokku) series. His first major critical success was Wet Sand in August (Hachigatsu no nureta suna, 1971), a melodrama, set on the Shōnan Coast southwest of Tokyo, about the friendships and romances of a group of young people with few hopes for the future. This earned him a reputation for dealing with youthful subjects; after a short period working on Nikkatsu Roman Porno, he returned to the experiences of the young with a series of films in a realist mode. Virgin Blues (Bājin Burūsu, 1974) and Did The Red Bird Escape? (Akai tori nigeta?, 1973) dramatized the generation gap through stories of teenagers who turn to crime and are rejected by their parents. The Red Lantern (Aka chōchin, 1974) depicted a young couple’s fruitless search for a room in Tokyo; Gregory Barrett has argued that the story expressed the younger generation’s “futile attempt to escape from a restrictive society.” Days That Have Passed (Kaerazaru hibi, 1978), an account of the life of a high school boy who returns from Tokyo to his native Nagano after his father’s death, topped the annual Kinema Junpō critics’ poll. Fujita also directed Temptation Angel (Tenshi o yūwaku, 1979), perhaps the best of the several star vehicles for the popular romantic pairing of Momoe Yamaguchi and Tomokazu Miura. Despite occasional stylistic indulgences, it was a warmly observed account of the everyday problems of a young suburban couple, and contained some of the first indications of Miura’s talent as a serious actor.

During the eighties, Fujita made Do the Slow Boogie with Me (Surōna bugi ni shite kure, 1981) for Kadokawa; this was another romantic drama, about the relationship between a girl and a middle-aged man. The Miracle of Joe the Petrel (Umitsubame Jō no kiseki, 1984) melded aspects of the youth film with elements of the crime thriller; it was set among the Manila underworld, and its hero was a half-Okinawan, half-Filipino yakuza. Fujita’s last film as director, Revolver (Riborubā, 1988), charted the lives of various characters connected by a single gun. By this time, Fujita was established as an actor, appearing notably for Seijun Suzuki in Zigeunerweisen (Tsigoineruwaizen, 1980). He continued to act until his death, and, with the exception of Lady Snowblood, is now perhaps best known in the West for his performances. Nevertheless, his realist films of the seventies were well-regarded in their time, and might benefit from wider distribution abroad.

1967 Hikō shōnen: Hinode no sakebi / Bad Boy: Crying at Sunrise

1968 Nippon zeronen / Japan, Year Zero (released in 2002)

1970 Hikō shōnen: Wakamono no toride / Bad Boy: A Young Man’s Stronghold

Nora neko rokku: Wairudo janbo / Stray Cat Rock: Wild Jumbo

Shinjuku autorō: Buttobase / Shinjuku Outlaw: Send It Flying

1971 Nora neko rokku: Bōsōshūdan ’71 / Stray Cat Rock: Motorcycle Gang ’71

Hachigatsu no nureta suna / Wet Sand in August

1972 Hachigatsu wa Erosu no nioi / The Summer Affair / Scent of Eros in August (lit.)

Erosu no yūwaku / Seduction of Eros

1973 Akai tori nigeta? / Did the Red Bird Escape?

Erosu wa amaki kaori / Eros Smells Sweet

Shurayuki hime / Lady Snowblood

1974 Aka chōchin / The Red Lantern

Shurayuki hime: Urami renka / Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance

Imōto / Younger Sister

Bājin burūsu / Virgin Blues

Honoo no shōzō / Portrait of Flame

1975 Hadashi no burūjin / Barefoot in Blue Jeans

1977 Yokosuka otokogari: Shōjo: Etsuraku / Yokosuka Manhunt: Young Girl: Pleasure

Jitsuroku furyō shōjo / Confessions of a Teenage Mother (lit. True Record of a Delinquent Girl)

1978 Kikenna kankei / Dangerous Liaisons

Kaerazaru hibi / Days That Have Passed / Bittersweet

1979 Motto shinayaka ni, motto shitataka ni / Smoother and Harder

Jūhassai, umi e / 18-Year-Old, To the Sea

Tenshi o yūwaku / Temptation Angel

1981 Surōna bugi ni shite kure / Do the Slow Boogie with Me

1982 Daiamondo wa kizu tsukanai / Diamonds Don’t Scratch

1983 Daburu beddo / Double Bed

1984 Umitsubame Jō no kiseki / The Miracle of Joe the Petrel / The Stormy Petrel

1986 Hakkō kirameku hate / Beyond the Shining Sea

1988 Riborubā / Revolver

FUKASAKU Kinji

(July 3, 1930–January 12, 2003)

深作欣二

A specialist in action cinema from the early sixties onwards, Fukasaku had acquired an international profile within the industry as early as 1970, having taken charge of the Japanese half of the Pearl Harbor saga Tora! Tora! Tora! (a Toei-20th Century Fox co-production) after Akira Kurosawa was removed from the project. Despite this and two later science fiction co-productions—Message from Space (Uchū kara no messēji, 1978) and Virus (Fukkatsu no hi, 1980) —with international casts, he ironically achieved a reputation among foreign audiences only at the end of his life. A retrospective at Rotterdam in 2000 was followed by the wide distribution of his last completed feature, Battle Royale (Batoru rowaiaru, 2000), which had courted controversy in Japan with its story of a class of teenagers compelled to fight to the death in a radical government measure to deal with youth crime. In fact, this savage satire was atypically elaborate in concept compared to the genre pieces which constituted the bulk of Fukasaku’s work. Based largely at Toei during the sixties and seventies, he worked primarily on yakuza films, distinguished by their postwar settings (in contrast to the Edo- or Meiji-era yakuza films of Toei colleagues such as Tai Katō) and by the stylistic immediacy which would typify Toei’s seventies specialty, the jitsuroku-eiga.

Fukasaku acknowledged the influence of the French New Wave, an influence most obviously visible in Blackmail Is My Life (Kyōkatsu koso ga waga jinsei, 1968), with its use of jump cuts and switches from black and white to color, and in the bold stylization of The Black Lizard (Kurotokage, 1968) and Black Rose Mansion (Kurobara no yakata, 1969), high camp vehicles for transvestite star Akihiro Miwa. Generally, however, Fukasaku opted for a hyperrealist style, using a handheld camera and the zoom lens to give his work the immediacy of newsreel footage. This style reached its apogee in his most famous gangster film, Battles without Honor and Humanity (Jingi naki tatakai, 1973), the first in a long-running series of which Fukasaku directed all but one installment. Here, a meticulous recreation of Occupation-era Hiro­shima captured the post-apocalypse zeitgeist and showed how crime flourished in the political near-vacuum of immediate postwar Japan.

The trauma of World War II, generally a backdrop to Fukasaku’s work, was the subject of his best film, Under the Flag of the Rising Sun (Gunki hatameku moto ni, 1972), a Rashomon-like investigation into the circumstances of a military execution, revealed in flashback through the differing accounts of four witnesses. Free from the conventions of genre filmmaking, Fukasaku produced a subversive examination of a taboo subject, and an acknowledgement that the historical record, shaped by partial personal testimony, is inevitably unreliable. Another politically conscious non-genre film was If You Were Young: Rage (Kimi ga wakamono nara, 1970), in which the bleak experiences of five working-class men in Tokyo were used with some intelligence and plausibility as a microcosm of the problems of the Japanese proletariat as a whole.

Nevertheless, Fukasaku’s champions have tended to place undue emphasis on elements of social criticism in his genre pieces, from the depiction of life in the slums in such early films as Greed in Broad Daylight (Hakuchū no buraikan, 1961) and Wolves, Pigs and Men (Ōkami to buta to ningen, 1964), to the exposure of political corruption in Blackmail Is My Life, to the implied association of the yakuza with the pro-militarist far right in Japan Organized Crime Boss (Nihon bōryokudan: Kumichō, 1969), and the explicit links between the mob and the police in Cops vs. Thugs (Kenkei tai soshiki bōryoku, 1975) and Yakuza Graveyard (Yakuza no hakaba: Kuchinashi no hana, 1976). Jasper Sharp and Tom Mes have praised the way in which Fukasaku’s yakuza films explored the dark underside of Japan’s postwar reconstruction, but the presentation of petty criminals as heroic rebels against the establishment merely suggested a preference for anarchic violence over authoritarian violence. Even in his most interesting films, Fukasaku’s effects were calculated to place sadistic emphasis on the physical details of bloodshed. In Under the Flag of the Rising Sun, monochrome flashbacks dissolve into color to display killings more graphically; freeze frames hold severed limbs in lingering close up in Battles without Honor and Humanity; and onscreen text tallies the death toll in Battle Royale. The limitation of Fuka­saku’s work was not so much that his characters lacked honor and humanity as that the director himself rarely adopted a compensating moral perspective on their brutality.

Though he continued intermittently to make crime thrillers, such as The Triple Cross (Itsu ka giragira suru hi, 1992), until the end of his career, Fukasaku also made jidai-geki in his later years. Some were purely commercial: Legend of the Eight Samurai (Satomi hakkenden, 1983) consisted almost solely of special effects and action thrills, paying scant regard to narrative plausibility or historical reality. Nevertheless, Fukasaku’s characteristic anti-authoritarianism was visible in such works as Shogun’s Samurai (Yagyū ichizoku no inbō, 1978), which iconoclastically rewrote history by depicting the fictitious murder of Shogun Iemitsu, and Sure Death: Revenge (Hissatsu 4: Urami harashimasu, 1987), which portrayed the ill-treatment of Edo-period slum dwellers by samurai. Though these films were more style than substance, they earned Fukasaku a reputation as a reliable commercial director, which gave him the freedom to mount such offbeat projects as Fall Guy (Kamata kōshinkyoku, 1982), a satire on the film industry depicting the relationship between an arrogant star and his devoted stunt double, and later Battle Royale. He died while directing the sequel to that film; completed by his son Kenta, it was poorly received. After years of neglect, however, Fukasaku’s own reputation is now higher than it deserves to be.

1961 Fūraibō tantei: Akai tani no sangeki / The Drifting Detective: Tragedy of the Red Valley

Fūraibō tantei: Misaki o wataru kuroi kaze / The Drifting Detec­tive: Black Wind across the Cape

Fankī hatto no kaidanji / Vigilante in the Funky Hat

Fankī hatto no kaidanji: Nisen­man-en no ude / Vigilante in the Funky Hat: The 20 Million Yen Arm

Hakuchū no buraikan / Greed in Broad Daylight / High Noon for Gangsters

1962 Hokori takaki chōsen / The Proud Challenge

Gyangu tai G-men / Gang vs. G-Men

1963 Gyangu dōmei / Gang Alliance

1964 Jakoman to Tetsu / Jakoman and Tetsu

Ōkami to buta to ningen / Wolves, Pigs and Men

1966 Odoshi / Threat

Kamikaze yarō: Mahiru no kettō / The Kamikaze Guy: Duel at High Noon

Hokkai no abareryū / Exploding Dragon of the North Sea

1967 Kaisanshiki / Dissolution Ceremony / The Breakup

1968 Bakuto kaisanshiki / Gamblers’ Dissolution Ceremony

Kurotokage / The Black Lizard

Kyōkatsu koso ga waga jinsei / Blackmail is My Life / Call Me Blackmail

Ganma 3-gō: Uchū daisakusen / The Green Slime / Battle Beyond the Stars (lit. Gamma 3: Big Operation in Space)

1969 Kurobara no yakata / Black Rose Mansion

Nihon bōryokudan: Kumichō / Japan Organized Crime Boss

1970 Chizome no daimon / Bloody Coat of Arms

Kimi ga wakamono nara / If You Were Young: Rage / Our Dear Buddies

Tora! Tora! Tora! (co-director)

1971 Bakuto gaijin butai / Gambler: Foreign Opposition / Gamblers in Okinawa / Sympathy for the Underdog

1972 Gunki hatameku moto ni / Under the Flag of the Rising Sun

Gendai yakuza: Hitokiri yota / Street Mobster / The Code of the Killer / Modern Yakuza: Outlaw Killer (lit.)

Hitokiri yota: Kyōken sankyōdai / The Code of the Killer: Three Mad Dog Brothers

1973 Jingi naki tatakai / Battles without Honor and Humanity / The Yakuza Papers

Jingi naki tatakai: Hiroshima shitō hen / Battles without Honor and Humanity: Fight to the Death in Hiroshima

Jingi naki tatakai: Dairi sensō / Battles without Honor and Humanity: Proxy War

1974 Jingi naki tatakai: Chōjō sakusen / Battles without Honor and Humanity: Police Tactics / Battles without Honor and Humanity: Summit Maneuvers

Jingi naki tatakai: Kanketsu hen / Battles without Honor and Humanity: Final Episode

Shin jingi naki tatakai / New Battles without Honor and Humanity

1975 Jingi no hakaba / Graveyard of Honor

Kenkei tai soshiki bōryoku / Cops vs. Thugs / Prefectural Police vs. Organized Crime (lit.)

Shikingen gōdatsu / Theft of Capital

Shin jingi naki tatakai: Kumichō no kubi / New Battles without Honor and Humanity: It’s Time to Kill the Boss

1976 Bōsō panikku: Daigekitotsu / Violent Panic: The Big Crash

Shin jingi naki tatakai: Kumichō saigo no hi / New Battles without Honor and Humanity: The Boss’s Final Day

Yakuza no hakaba: Kuchinashi no hana / Yakuza Graveyard

1977 Hokuriku dairi sensō / Hokuriku Proxy War

Dōberuman deka / Detective Doberman

1978 Yagyū ichizoku no inbō / Shogun’s Samurai / The Yagyu Conspiracy (lit.)

Uchū kara no messēji / Message from Space

Akō-jō danzetsu / The Fall of Ako Castle

1980 Fukkatsu no hi / Virus / Day of Resurrection (lit.)

1981 Seishun no mon / The Gate of Youth (co-director)

Makai tenshō / Samurai Resurrection

1982 Dōtonborigawa / Lovers Lost / The River Dotonbori (lit.)

Kamata kōshinkyoku / Fall Guy (lit. Kamata March)

1983 Jinsei gekijō / Theater of Life (co-director)

Satomi hakkenden / Legend of Eight Samurai

1984 Shanhai Bansu Kingu / Shanghai Rhapsody (lit. Shanghai Vance
King)

1986 Kataku no hito / House on Fire

1987 Hissatsu IV: Urami harashimasu / Sure Death 4 / Sure Death: Revenge

1988 Hana no ran / Rage of Love / A Chaos of Flowers (lit.)

1992 Itsu ka giragira suru hi / The Triple Cross

1994 Chūshingura gaiden: Yotsuya kaidan / Crest of Betrayal (lit. Supplement to Chushingura: Yotsuya Ghost Story)

1999 Omocha / The Geisha House (lit. Plaything)

2000 Batoru Rowaiaru / Battle Royale

2003 Batoru Rowaiaru II: Chinkonka / Battle Royale II: Requiem (co-director)

FURUHATA Yasuo

(b. August 19, 1934)

降旗康男

A proficient commercial director, Furuhata made his debut with the youth film Bad Girl Yoko (Hikō shōjo Yōko, 1966), about a girl who, along with her boyfriend, escapes Japan by boarding a boat to San Tropez. He truly cut his teeth, however, on two popular series of Toei action pictures: Modern Yakuza (Gendai yakuza), of which he directed two episodes, and Abashiri Prison (Abashiri bangaichi), to which he contributed six. The latter series cemented a productive working relationship with tough-guy star Ken Takakura, and, with its Hokkaido settings, established the director’s penchant for snowbound locations.

Furuhata worked again with Taka­kura on Winter Flower (Fuyu no hana, 1978), about a former yakuza looking after the teenage daughter of a fellow gangster for whose death he was responsible. The film’s mood earned comparisons with French crime pictures. Takakura also starred in Station (Eki, 1981), following twelve years in the life and career of a policeman who also competes as an Olympic sharpshooter, and Demon (Yasha, 1985), about an ex-criminal who has left the gangster life to marry and work as a fisherman in a coastal village. Both films centered more on personal drama than on action: Demon was a mature character study, rich in local color and commenting intelligently on the reaction of small communities to such ostensibly urban phenomena as alcohol abuse, gambling, and crime. Though this film included action scenes more typical of a crime thriller, Furuhata also made more straightforwardly dramatic films, often with romantic themes. Love (Izakaya Chōji, 1983) charted the enduring passion between former lovers. Buddies (A un, 1989) was an account of a friendship destroyed by the unspoken love of one friend for the wife of the other; it was set against the backdrop of prewar society and politics, as was Winter Camellia (Kantsubaki, 1992), a story about rival politicians and the yakuza who work for them competing for the favor of a geisha in the provincial city of Kōchi. Time of Wickedness (Ma no toki, 1985), considered by Japanese critics to be Furuhata’s masterpiece, was a study of an incestuous relationship between mother and son.

Furuhata’s biggest hit, however, was The Railroad Man (Poppoya, 1999), a sentimental melodrama again starring Takakura as the ageing stationmaster of a declining former mining town in Hokkaido. While expertly made, the film was, in Raymond Durgnat’s phrase, a “male weepie,” idolizing a hero who puts work before family even when his wife and child are dying. Another hit was The Firefly (Hotaru, 2001), a film about the survivors of the kamikaze corps, which examined the role of servicemen from colonized Korea in the war effort. The melodramatic Red Moon (Akai tsuki, 2004) also evoked the war, dramatizing the loves and sufferings of colonists in Manchuria at the time of the Soviet invasion. It was criticized in some quarters for ignoring the cruelties the Japanese inflicted on the local population; Mark Schilling hinted that Furuhata’s implicitly nationalist attitudes have denied him an international reputation. Nevertheless, his consistent commercial and intermittent critical success within Japan suggest that his oeuvre might merit further exploration.

1966 Hikō shōjo Yōko / Bad Girl Yoko

Jigoku no okite ni asu wa nai / The Law of Hell Has No Tomorrow

1967 Gyangu no teiō / The Sovereign of All Gangsters / Gang 11

Chōeki jūhachinen: Karishutsugoku / Parole (lit. 18 Years’ Penal Servitude: Parole)

1968 Gokuchū no kaoyaku / The Boss in Jail

Uragiri no ankokugai / Treacherous Underworld

1969 Gendai yakuza: Yotamono no okite / Modern Yakuza: Gangster Code

Gendai yakuza: Yotamono jingi / Modern Yakuza: Honor among Gangsters

Shin Abashiri bangaichi: Runin misaki no kettō / New Abashiri Prison: Bloody Battle of Exile Cape

1970 Nihon jokyōden: Makkana dokyōbana / Chronicle of Strong Women of Japan: Bright Red Flower of Courage

Ninkyō kōbō shi: Kumichō to daigashi / History of the Rise and Fall of Chivalry: The Boss and the Moneylender’s Agent

Sutemi no narazumono / Desperate Outlaw

Shin Abashiri bangaichi: Daishinrin no kettō / New Abashiri Prison: Bloody Battle of the Great Forest

Shin Abashiri bangaichi: Fubuki no hagure ōkami / New Abashiri Prison: Stray Wolf in a Snowstorm

1971 Gorotsuki mushuku / Wandering Rogue

Shin Abashiri bangaichi: Arashi o yobu Shiretoko misaki / New Abashiri Prison: Stormy Cape Shiretoko

Shin Abashiri bangaichi: Fubuki no daidassō / New Abashiri Prison: Great Escape in a Snowstorm

1972 Nihon bōryokudan: Koroshi no sakazuki / Japan’s Violent Gangs: Killers’ Cup

Shin Abashiri bangaichi: Arashi yobu danpu jingi / New Abashiri Prison: Stormy Dump Truck
Honor

1973 Shikima ōkami / Sex-Crazed Wolf

1974 Yoru no enka: Shinobigoi / Night Ballad: Hidden Love

1978 Fuyu no hana / Winter Flower

1979 Honjitsu tadaima tanjō / Just Born Today

Waga seishun no irebun / Our Youth’s Eleven

Nihon no fikusā / Japanese Fixer

1981 Shikakenin Baian / Baian the Assassin

Eki / Station

1983 Izakaya Chōji / Love (lit. Bar Choji)

1985 Ma no toki / Time of Wickedness

Yasha / Demon

1987 Wakarenu riyū / Reason for Not Divorcing

1989 Shōgun Iemitsu no ranshin: Gekitotsu / Shogun’s Shadow / Gekitotsu: The Insanity of Shogun Iemitsu (lit.)

Gokudō no onnatachi: Sandaime anego / Yakuza Wives: Third Generation Female Boss

A un / Buddies (lit. Alpha and Omega)

1990 Tasumania monogatari / Tasmania Story

Isan sōzoku / Inheritance

1991 Don ni natta otoko / The Man Who Became a Don

1992 Kantsubaki / Winter Camellia

1994 Shin gokudō no onnatachi: Horetara jigoku / New Yakuza Wives: Hell If You Fall in Love

1995 Kura / Kura (lit. Storehouse)

1997 Gendai ninkyōden / A Story of Modern Chivalry

1999 Poppoya / The Railroad Man

2001 Hotaru / The Firefly

2004 Akai tsuki / Red Moon

2007 Tsukigami / The Haunted Samurai

FURUMAYA Tomoyuki

(b. November 14, 1968)

古厩智之

One of the most promising of younger Japanese directors, Furumaya made short films in 8 and 16mm formats before winning the PIA Film Festival scholarship to realize his first feature, This Window Is Yours (Kono mado wa kimi no mono, 1995). This story of a teenage romance won praise for its sensitivity to the nuances of adolescent behavior, its way of keeping emotions implicit, and its careful evocation of the details of life in provincial Japan. These qualities were also visible in Furumaya’s semi-autobiographical second film, Bad Company (Mabudachi, 2001), about a trio of delinquents at junior high school. Virtually without major incident, apart from one tragic event, this subtly affecting film captured the beauty of rural Nagano without subsiding into mere prettiness and employed meditative long takes that faintly recalled the work of Hiroshi Shimizu in their way of observing, rather than passing judgment on, the characters.

Furumaya’s next film, Robocon (Robokon, 2003), also focused on alienated youth: its central character was a disenchanted girl at vocational school who becomes determined to win a robotics competition. In Goodbye, Midori (Sayonara Midori-chan, 2005), Furumaya shifted his focus for the first time to adult relationships, examining the dilemma of a female office worker attracted, despite herself, to an unworthy man. Visually more austere than Bad Company, the film was distinguished by its intelligent awareness of the way in which posture and facial expression reveal subtleties of character. With his detached yet compassionate style, Furumaya may succeed in sustaining a classical Japanese tradition of film drama based in realistic detail and behavioral nuance through the coming decades.

1991 Sutego no Sutekichi / Sutekichi the Abandoned Child (8mm short)

Shakunetsu no dojjibōru / Scorching Hot (lit. Red-Hot Dodgeball) (16mm short)

1992 Hashiruze / Running / Run! (16mm short)

1994 Tetsu to hagane / Steel Blue (lit. Iron and Steel) (short)

1995 Kono mado wa kimi no mono / This Window Is Yours (16mm)

1999 Indies B: Bokusā to tako / Indies B: The Boxer and the Kite (short)

2001 Mabudachi / Bad Company

2003 Robokon / Robocon / Robot Competition

2005 Sayonara Midori-chan / Goodbye Midori

FUTAGAWA Buntarō

(June 18, 1899–March 28, 1966)

二川文太郎

A specialist in jidai-geki, Futagawa is remembered largely for the silent films he made at Makino Productions in collaboration with popular action hero Tsumasaburō Bandō. Several of these survive: Kageboshi (Edo Kaizokuden: Kagebōshi, 1925) is admired for having introduced a greater psychological depth into a genre hitherto concerned largely with action, while the most famous, Orochi (1925), is considered of importance in establishing the anti-heroic persona of the “nihilist hero” in revolt against society, which would be developed by Daisuke Itō. The film’s melancholy mood was genuinely affecting, though it lacked Itō’s depth of political implication, the hero’s sufferings being the result more of hard luck than of social injustice. Noel Burch has called Futagawa “the epitome of the academic neo-Western director”; however, while his style had a certain classical economy, his preference for staging action scenes in long shot was as characteristically Japanese as were his thematic concerns. It seems, moreover, that he made occasional films in a deliberately experimental mode: the lost When the Gravestone Snores (Boseki ga ibikisuru koro, 1925) was apparently influenced by the then fashionable expressionism of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, Robert Wiene).

In the thirties, Futagawa worked at Shochiku, where he continued to specialize in period films, often starring the dashing Chōjūrō Hayashi (later renamed Kazuo Hasegawa). However, his sound films were not widely admired, and he retired from direction in 1939. An attempted comeback in the fifties was unsuccessful. Futagawa’s younger brother, Eisuke Takizawa, also worked as a director.

1923 Shinkirō / Mirage

1924 Kaiketsu taka / The Mighty Hawk

Buaku no men / The Devil’s Mask

Kekkon subekarazu / Don’t Get Married

Gekkyūbi no yoru no dekigoto (Kyūryōbi no yoru) / Incidents on the Night After Payday (Payday Night)

Shisen ni tateba / Standing Between Life and Death

Jōnetsu no hi / Fires of Passion

Bonnō jigoku / Hell of Desire

Maen no kiyuru koro / When the Devil-Fire Is Quenched

Koi no ryōnin / Love Hunter

Natsuyoimachi shinjū / Double Suicide at Natsuyoimachi

Kunisada Chūji Shinshū miyako ochi / Chuji Kunisada Leaves the Capital for Shinshu

Gyakuryū / Retaliation

1925 Kunisada Chūji / Chuji Kunisada

Edo kaizokuden: Kagebōshi / Kageboshi (lit. Legend of the Phantom Thief in Edo: The Shadow)

Boseki ga ibikisuru koro / When the Gravestone Snores

Aru tonosama no hanashi / A Certain Lord’s Story

Rantō / Swordfight

Zoku rantō / Swordfight 2

Orochi / Orochi / The Serpent

1926 Enpō kibun: Bijōfu / Strange Story of the Enpo Period: A Handsome Young Man

Shura hakkō (Daiippen; Dainihen; Dansanpen) / The Pains of Hell (Parts 1, 2, and 3)

Guren no chimata: Buke katagi / Neighborhood of Foolish Love: Nature of a Samurai Household

Dondorobori / Muddy Moat

Teru hi kumoru hi (Daiippen; Dainihen) / Bright Day, Cloudy Day (Parts 1 and 2)

Kagebōshi torimonochō: Zenpen / Casebooks of the Shadow: Part 1

1927 Kagebōshi torimonochō: Kōhen / Casebooks of the Shadow: Part 2

Akuma no hoshi no moto ni / Under the Devil’s Stars

Miyokichi goroshi / The Killing of Miyokichi

1928 Dokuhebi / Poisonous Snake

Madara hebi / Spotted Snake

Shinpan Ōoka seidan (Zenpen; Chūhen) / Ooka’s Trial: New Version (Parts 1 and 2)

Hi no warai / Red Smile

Kotsuniku / Flesh and Bone

1929 Taika shinsei / New Dispensation of the Taika Era (co-director)

Isetsu: Shimizu Ikkaku / Heterodoxy: Ikkaku Shimizu

Hatamoto Kobushinshū / Carpenter Retainers of the Shogun

Kunisada Chūji no iji / The Son of the Late Chuji Kunisada

Katana o nuite / Drawing the Sword

Araki Mataemon / Mataemon Araki

Aisuru mono no michi / Way of a Lover

Zoku kagebōshi: Kyōsō hen / Kageboshi 2: Thirst-Crazed Chapter

1930 Donfuku dairensen / Fortunate Great Love

Mōmoku no otōto / Blind Younger Brother

Kaidan Kasanegafuchi / The Ghost of Kasane Swamp

Harenchi gaidō / Shameless Heresy

1931 Kagoya dainagon / Palanquin Bearer and Minister

Ryakudatsu yomego / Abduction of the Bride

Nagebushi Yanosuke: Michinoku no maki / Bawdy Song of Yanosuke: Michinoku Reel

Nagebushi Yanosuke: Edo no maki / Bawdy Song of Yanosuke: Edo Reel

1932 Yajikita: Bijin sōdōki / Yaji and Kita: Trouble About a Beauty

Nawanuke Jihei: Shiranami zaifu / Jihei Nawanuke: The Wallet of Shiranami

Kurama Tengu: Taifū no maki / Kurama Tengu: Typhoon Reel

Kamiyui Shinzō / Shinzo the Hairdresser

Tenbare Hisaroku / Hisaroku under Clear Skies

Adauchi kyōdai kagami / Model Avenging Brothers

1933 Kōsetsu: Nuretsubame / Rumor: Wet Swallow

Yatō to seishun / The Night Thief and Youth

Matagorō kyōdai / The Brothers Matagoro

Unka no kyōteki / Rivals in Cloud and Mist

Tenmei hatamotogasa: Kōrui no maki / A Retainer’s Helmet of the Tenmei Era: A Beautiful Woman’s Tears

1934 Tenmei hatamotogasa: Hareru hi no maki / A Retainer’s Helmet of the Tenmei Era: Brightening Days

Yarisabi renbo / Love of a Rusted Spear

Rinzō shusse tabi / Rinzo’s Journey to Success

Tsujigiri zange / Penitence for the Killing at the Crossroads

1935 Jingi wa kagayaku / Glory of Honor

Umon torimonochō: Hanayome jigoku hen / The Casebooks of Detective Umon: A Bride’s Hell

1936 Iseya koban / Iseya’s Gold

1937 Ruten: Daiichibu: Honoo / Vicissitudes of Life: Part 1: The Flame

Ruten: Dainibu: Hoshi / Vicissitudes of Life: Part 2: The Star

1938 Shunpū Ise monogatari / Tale of the Spring Breeze at Ise

Isetsu: Hatamoto gonin otoko / Heterodoxy: Five Retainers

Nagadosu jiai / Competition of Long Swords

Kimen mikazukitō / Demon-Masked Group of the Crescent Moon

1939 Chūji tabi nikki / Chuji’s Travel Diary

Nijibare kaidō / Road under a Rainbow

1955 Fukushū Jōrurizaka: Onibuse tōge no shūgeki / Revenge at Jorurizaka: Attack at Onibuse Pass

Fukushū Jōrurizaka: Akatsuki no kessen / Revenge of Jorurizaka: Bloody Battle at Dawn