Seijun Suzuki

After his own gang sets him up to kill a rival mobster, a hit man is forced to flee with his younger brotherRead More »

Another Kayo-eiga (Pop Song Film), inspired by the hit Ukikusa No Yado sung by Hachiro Kasuga. Although the singer has a co-starring role, the movie was designed as a star vehicle for the new Nikkatsu hunk, Hiseaki Nitani. He plays a young gangster wanna-be, framed for a murder and sent to prison. Upon release, he gets revenge against the yakuza boss who set him up.Read More »

‘Carmen from Kawachi brings the nihilist Suzuki universe to a woman’s life in the decidedly unsentimental education of a provincial factory worker, Tsuyuko, whose rape by two fellow villagers starts her on the road to sexual awareness and finally, independence. It is a long, picaresque road indeed, meandering from Osaka’s Club Dada, through liaisons with a millionaire, a dominatrix, and an action painter–all the while cohabiting with a degenerate if loving roué. The determining encounter is with a corrupt monk, whose sordid affair with her mother had been for Tsuyuko a primal introduction to sexual hypocrisy and male brutality.’Read More »

Quote:
Yumeji is the final film in youth-gone-berserk auteur Seijun Suzuki’s acclaimed Taisho Trilogy. Sensual and absurdist, it spins a ghost story around the character and work of real-life painter and poet Yumeji Takehisa (1884-1934). The eponymous character — conjured by Suzuki as a chronic philanderer and dreamer played by former rock star Kenji Sawada — is plagued with ideals of perfect beauty and the terror of his own demise. He falls in love with women, but can never capture their hearts. He is constantly escaping his rivals, but can never face them down.Read More »

Quote:
Born in Tokyo in 1923, Seijun Suzuki directed 42 films for Nikkatsu, averaging on about four a year, and he claims he could edit each in about a day. Despite being lauded by the critics for his unique visual style, as far as the general public and Nikkatsu president Kyusaku Hori were concerned by the mid-60s Suzuki’s approach was beginning to spin rapidly out of control.Read More »

As powerful and energetic as ever, 78-year old director Seijun Suzuki creates a stunningly lurid, extreme tale of a woman assassin’s (new sensation Makiko Esumi) surreal rise in the criminal underworld. Thirty-three years later, this master of the pulp thriller reworks his own Branded To Kill into a totally new, jaw-dropping experience! The original Branded To Kill (1976, Koroshi No Rakun starring Jo Shishido. Mariko Ogawa, Anne Mari) is the stylish action movie that has been the subject of homage from world-class directors such as John Woo, Quentin Tarantino, and Jim Jarmusch. Its eccentric, eye-popping images and extreme action is fast earning Pistol Opera a worldwide cult following.Read More »

During the 1930s, a teenager yearns for a Catholic girl, whose only desire is to reform his sinful tendencies. Hormones raging, the young man channels his unsatisfied lust into the only outlet available: savage, crazed violence.Read More »

Nikkatsu finally responds to Suzuki’s growing discontentment by giving him a bigger budget and a better script. This episodic collection of “real coast guard action stories” was the perfect vehicle for Koji Wada. Whatever negative press he had received for Tokyo Knights was quickly forgotten.

He became the new “teen star.” And Suzuki: “the director to watch.”Read More »

Four secret agents investigate a series of mysterious fires in a small town in Edo-era Japan. This is an episode of the TV Series “Oedo Sochi-mo,” which follows the same group of secret agents as they solve a variety of mysteries.Read More »