I’ve been enjoying August Ragone’s writing on Japanese cinema for many many years. I first discovered his work thanks to a terrific zine he first produced in the 80s’ called Markalite: The Magazine of Japanese Fantasy and since then I’ve read numerous articles he’s written for magazines such as G-Fan and Asian Cult Cinema over the years. Most recently he wrote the wonderful book Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters, which was published in association with Chronicle Books.

August Ragone has also just started his own blog called The Good, the Bad, and Godzilla and if you’re a fan of Japanese fantasy and science fiction films I highly recommend giving his new blog a look. You’ll finds news and information about his upcoming book signings and various events there as well as interesting bits and pieces about Japanese cinema.

Tetsuya Watari and Joe Shishido

Last week the Nikkatsu Action Film Series made its way to San Francisco and the nice guys over at the Outcast Cinema site who manage the event were kind enough to remind me with a friendly email. Unfortunately due to my current work schedule, ongoing apartment maintenance and various family obligations, which are leaving me with very little free time lately, I wasn’t able to see any of the films scheduled to play. I rarely make it into the city for film events anymore due to the high cost of gas, bridge fares, parking fees and ticket prices. A night out at the movies with my guy in the Bay Area can easily cost us $50, but I had really hoped to see two of the Toshio Masuda films that were scheduled to show at the Nikkatsu Action series (Gangster V.I.P. and Red Handkerchief) since they were two films I’d never seen before and I’ve become fascinated with the director’s work over the last couple of years.

Last year I picked up a copy of a wonderful Japanese book called Toshio Masuda - Films - Complete Guide which contains over 500 pages covering the director’s long career and accomplishments. It’s an amazing looking book obviously packed with many details about the director’s 80+ films and it also includes lots of lovely still shots from various productions. Naturally it’s written in Japanese and since I can barely read a word of Japanese myself and often have to rely on family and friends for minimal translations, I haven’t been able to fully appreciate the book. I highly doubt that there will ever be an English translation of the entire text made available, but the book has still managed to widen my understanding of Toshio Masuda ’s amazing directorial career and I’ve been making an attempt to try and see as many of his films as possible lately, which is why I was so disappointed that I missed the Toshio Masuda films shown during the Nikkatsu Action series. I’m currently researching some interesting aspects of Toshio Masuda carreer and I hope to see a few more of his early films soon on DVD. You can expect to see more posts from me about the director in the future.

Here’s a brief blurb about Toshio Masuda from the only English text featured on the cover of Toshio Masuda - Films - Complete Guide. It’s written in broken English so don’t be surprised if you find it a little hard to follow:

“Action, Romance, Comedy, Animation, The War. A Giant in the field of Japanese program pictures. Toshio Masuda was born in Kobe City, October 5th 1927. There was a year his 16 films have reached the TOP 10 in the yearly charts. It is the second highest record in the history of Japanese movies. He also has been in the chart from the 1950’s through until 1990’s, for about 5 decades. This is a miracle and a marvelous thing. His films themes are not only about action but comedy, romance, animation and the war. And every theme relates to the bloom of youth.”

It’s really astonishing and extremely sad that the work of such an important Japanese director like Toshio Masuda is almost completely unavailable to western audiences and has often been totally overlooked by western critics and film scholars. Thankfully due to the hard work of some people such as the fine folks at Outcast Cinema that is slowly changing and I’m extremely grateful for all their efforts.

Since I’m on the topic of Nikkatsu Action cinema, I also wanted to mention that I recently finished reading Mark Schilling’s latest book No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema, which is a quick read and well worth picking up if you’re interested in Japanese cinema. I’ve enjoyed many of Mark Schilling’s books over the years such as The Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture and The Yakuza Movie Book so I was looking forward to reading his latest effort and I think it’s probably his best book yet because it limits its focus to one topic and provides readers with some interesting tidbits about the genre. No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema is somewhat light on content but it easily makes up for that with lots of fascinating interviews with important directors and stars, as well as beautiful still shots and incredible poster art reproductions. I don’t always agree with Schilling’s interpretations of Nikkatsu Action cinema that he puts forward in the book or his opinions regarding particular films and directors. And occasionally while reading the interviews he conducted with directors I desperately wished I could have jumped in with my own questions, but I’m very grateful that Schilling is making a much needed effort to research the work and careers of talented filmmakers like Toshio Masuda who is featured in his book along with Seijun Suzuki, Yasuharu Hasebe and Koreyoshi Kurahara. Since so little English language information is available about Nikkatsu’s Action cinema Mark Schilling’s book is a very welcome addition to the slowly growing body of Japanese film criticism and history that’s trying to forge ahead and follow uncharted paths that were often neglected by other well-known Japanese film critics and scholars in the past.

Here’s a few brief paragraphs from Mark Schilling’s Forward to No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema:

“The label said it all: Nikkatsu Akushon. Nikkatsu was a studio that had been around since the silent days and Akushon was “Action,” written in the katakana syllabary for foreign words. During their peak, from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, Nikkatsu Action films evoked a cinematic world neither foreign nor Japanese, but a mix of the two, where Japanese tough guys had the swagger, moves and long legs of Hollywood movie heroes. Where Tokyo streets, Yokohama docks and Hokkaido plains took on an exciting, exotic aura, as though they were stand-ins for Manhattan, Marseilles or the American West.

. . .

“Foreign critics long ignored Nikkatsu Action. Donald Richie and Joseph Anderson’s seminal 1959 history The Japanese Film: Art and Industry passed over the entire genre in silence, as did its 1982 revised edition. Joan Mellen’s 1976 study The Waves at Genji’s Door: Japan Through Its Cinema does not mention Nikkatsu or its films and stars even once. The rise of Seijun Suzuki to cult fame in the West in the 1980s brought the genre more attention abroad, but often in a negative way, with critics hailing Suzuki as an overlooked and discarded master, while dismissing the films of his colleagues as studio hack work (despite having seen few of them.)”

Mark Schilling’s book No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema retails for $15.95 and it’s currently available at Amazon for only $10.85. The Japanese book Toshio Masuda - Films - Complete Guide was published last year by Hotwax in association with Shinko Music Entertainment Co. LTD and it should be available at better Japanese book stores such as Kinokuniya. You can also purchase the book online at places such as YesAsia.com, but it costs a lot more there. The original retail price is about $37 and YesAsia is selling it for $50 plus shipping and handling costs so potential buyers should be aware of the considerable price hikes by some retailers.

The Nikkatsu Action film series is still going strong and many films will be shown across the country in various U.S. locations throughout April and May. For more information about the event please visit the Outcast Cinema Blog for locations and showtimes.

One of my favorite films from Panik House’s 2005 Pinky Violence DVD Collection was Delinquent Girl Boss: Worthless To Confess (Zubekô banchô: zange no neuchi mo nai, 1971), which was directed by Kazuhiko Yamaguchi for Toei and starred the strikingly cute Japanese actress and occasional pop idol Reiko Oshida. Not only was Delinquent Girl Boss: Worthless To Confess one of the best looking films in the collection, featuring some truly impressive cinematography and direction, but I also really liked Reiko Oshida’s take on playing a bad girl trying to make good in the world. Unlike the other lovely and talented ladies that have starred in numerous pinky violence films such as Reiko Ike and Miki Sugimoto, Reiko Oshida seemed to have a sense of humor about her roles and she always wore a sly grin on her face. Besides an occasional gratuitous panty shot, she also managed to keep her clothes on in all her films even when her co-stars were baring all.

This week Media Blasters released the first film in the Delinquent Girl Boss movie series called Delinquent Girl Boss: Blossoming Night Dreams (Zubeko Bancho: Yumei Wa Yoru Hiraku, 1970) on DVD and it’s my DVD Pick of the Week. Due to a rather loose script, the film doesn’t exactly pack the same powerful dramatic punch that Delinquent Girl Boss: Worthless To Confess had, but the movie still features some really impressive visuals and great musical numbers that more than make up for the writing. Overall it’s a terrific addition to the slowly growing stable of pinky violence films now available on DVD in the U.S. and it’s sure to impress anyone who enjoys the work of the talented Japanese director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi.

Delinquent Girl Boss: Blossoming Night Dreams was Kazuhiko Yamaguchi’s directorial debut and he also co-wrote the script for the film. Yamaguchi would go on to make other films in the Delinquent Girl Boss series and many other Japanese action films featuring tough female stars including the Wandering Ginza Butterfly series with Meiko Kaji and the Sister Street Fighter series with Etsuko Shihomi. I enjoy all of his his films, but I personally prefer the director’s Delinquent Girl Boss efforts, because I tend to favor the plots, as well as popular Japanese music, modern design and period fashions, which are often on display in these films.

Much like Delinquent Girl Boss: Worthless To Confess, which was the fourth film in the series, Delinquent Girl Boss: Blossoming Night Dream opens with a small riot breaking out at a juvenile faculty for troubled young women. In the series Reiko Oshida plays an orphan named Rika who grew up in Yokohama. Rika is a rebellious 19 year-old struggling with her aversion to authority figures and her obvious urge to set things right whenever she feels injustices are taking place. After she’s released from the juvenile faculty she gets a job at a hostess club in Shinjuku where many of her fellow delinquents now work. The owner of the hostess club was once a delinquent herself, but she’s become a sort of surrogate mother to the girls who work at her club, as well as the lone male host who services gay clients there. Unfortunately things get complicated when some local yakuza start shoving their weight around and trying to gain control over her club. The yakuza are also selling drugs and managing their own group of tough ladies who act as drug pushers in the neighborhood. Throughout the course of the film Rika becomes somewhat of a vigilante in an effort to help her friends and her boss, but her conflicting emotions and hardened criminal background are often at odds. She’s a tough girl who knows how to take care of herself and put others in their place, but she’s also got a warm heart and clearly cares about her friends and their futures.

As I mentioned above, Delinquent Girl Boss: Blossoming Night Dreams seems to suffer a little thanks to the script, which was probably due to Kazuhiko Yamaguchi inexperience as a writer at the time. But the film also has some truly impressive moments, including a beautiful romantic beach scene between Reiko Oshida and her male co-star (Hayato Tani). It takes place among a bunch of huge cement structures resting on the sand and adds a dream-like quality to the film. The talented cinematographer Hanjiro Nakazawa should be co-credited for the amazing look of the Delinquent Girl Boss movies. Nakazawa worked with the acclaimed director Kinji Fukasaku on many of his best crime films including Sympathy for the Underdog (1971), Street Mobster (1972) and Graveyard of Honor (1975). He’s also partially responsible for the fantastic look of the Female Prisoner Scorpion films and he brings the same creativity to the Delinquent Girl Boss series. These films are a great showcase for Nakazawa’s dynamic color photography and director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi’s imaginative compositions. Both men had the ability to turn what could easily be considered a simple exploitive genre film into art.

Yamaguchi and Nakazawa also do an amazing job of capturing Shinjuko nightlife in the early seventies. The exterior shots of the city are really impressive and the psychedelic club scenes and musical acts featured in the film are stylishly shot and full of energy. I was thrilled to discover that the Japanese girl group Golden Half appears in Delinquent Girl Boss: Blossoming Night Dreams along with folk pop idol Keiko Fuji. Since I love Japanese pop music from this period, I really enjoyed the musical numbers even though Golden Half only performs their popular song Yellow Cherry (Kiroii Sakurambo), which happens to be the same song the group sang in Yasuharu Hasebe’s pinky violence film Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter. Both of the films were released in 1970, but they were made by different studios. Toei was responsible for the Delinquent Girl Boss series and Nikkatsu produced the Stray Cat Rock films, but both studios obviously wanted to cash in on the popularity of Golden Half at the time and their hit song.

Keiko Fuji sings the film’s memorable opening theme song and she has an interesting, but extremely small role in the film. Keiko Fuji was popular among some radical student groups in Japan, probably due to her ability to mix traditional enka style ballads with modern popular music. In the film she strums a guitar while singing a very traditional sounding song that seems to deeply touch the women working at the hostess bar. It’s a nice moment in the film and Keiko does a good with her brief part, but I wish she had been given a little more to do in the movie. I hope to write a bit more about the music featured in pinky violence films soon.

Besides the appearance of Keiko Fuji, the social and political commentary that can sometimes be found in pinky violence films seems rather lowkey here, but there are a few moments in Delinquent Girl Boss: Blossoming Night Dreams that I felt reflected the complicated power struggles going on between criminal men who liked to flex their muscles in postwar Japan and the independent women who were often forced to have business dealings with them. In an odd twist, the young female junkie in the film suffering horribly from drug dependency also has dyed blond hair and wears a dress emblazoned with the American flag. I have no idea if the director was trying to hint at America’ involvement in the underground drug market in Japan after WW2 or implying something even more subversive, but it’s possible. I also found it amusing that Reiko Oshida wears a kind of mod miniskirt version of a Native American Indian costume when she helps take down the bad guys at the end of the movie. It’s hard to overlook the possible anti-occupation sentiments in that small gesture.

The Delinquent Girl Boss series is really one of the highlights of the recent wave of pinky violence films being released on DVD. If you’re new to the genre or just curious about these types of Japanese films, the Delinquent Girl Boss movies make a great introduction to the genre since they’re creatively shot and tend to feature mild violence and eroticism.

Delinquent Girl Boss: Blossoming Night Dreams is available on DVD from Media Blasters on their Exploitation Digital label for $29.99 and it’s currently selling at Amazon for $26.99. The DVD features a nice looking anamorphic widescreen print of the film, as well as a photo gallery and the original trailer. As I mentioned above, the fourth film in the Delinquent Girl Boss series was released on DVD in 2005 from Panik House and it’s available as part of their terrific Pinky Violence Collection. Hopefully the second and thirdDelinquent Girl Boss films will find their way onto DVD soon. Thankfully the films in the series can be enjoyed individually and they don’t have to be watched in any kind of order, but I would recommend seeing Delinquent Girl Boss: Blossoming Night Dreams before Delinquent Girl Boss: Worthless To Confess if you’re new to the series.

If you’d like to see more images from the film please see my Delinquent Girl Boss: Blossoming Night Dreams Flickr Gallery.

Also worth mentioning is the recent DVD release of Jess Franco’s Eugenie de Sade (1970) from Blue Underground, which was reviewed by Robert Monell over at I’m in a Jess Franco State of Mind. I haven’t had the opportunity to view it yet myself, but I’m looking forward to it.

I’m still compiling my Best DVDs of 2007 List and it’s taking me a bit longer to finish then I had expected, but I promise that I’ll be posting it here soon so keep an eye out for it!

The third clip in Cinebeats’ ongoing Battle Sequence Series is from Condorman : Symbol of Justice (Seigi no shinboru Kondoruman). Condorman was an entertaining action-packed tokuatsu series created by the great Kôhan Kawauchi (aka Yasunori Kawauchi), which aired on Japanese television in 1975. Kawauchi is responsible for creating the first Japanese superhero television show in 1958 known as Moonlight Mask (Gekko Kamen), which shares some obvious similarities with Condorman. The heroes of Kawauchi’s shows have a similar look and episodes often featured cliffhanger endings. They also both drove their own groovy vehicles. Moonlight Mask had a motorcycle and Condorman had his own special car called the Mach Condor.

Condorman starred a little known Japanese actor by the name of Hitoshi Sato who was a former race car driver. His driving skills gave him the ability to handle driving the Mach Condor on the show. As Condorman, Hitoshi Sato would fight evil monsters who disguised themselves as humans and were out to pollute planet earth’s water and air supply, among other things. Condorman was able to see through the monster’s human disguises with his “Condor Eye” and he used many special powers such as “Condor Thunder” and “Condor Hurricane” to stop them. Besides all the various monsters, Condorman also had to deal with their numerous henchmen who all looked like Nazis wearing Lucha Libre masks.

Just a small sampling of the strange monsters Condorman had to fight.

In some ways the important messages in Condorman that warned viewers about the negative effects of pollution, inflation and other ills made the show ahead of its time. Condorman also featured some spectacular action sequences, as well as colorful costumes and prop designs. The monsters he fought were often very unusual and included a sombrero wearing smog creature, a giant cockroach, a green-haired batgirl and strange robots.

Unfortunately Condorman never really caught on with kids or adults and the show stopped airing after only one season. Some episodes of the series were released on video in Japan and I believe the series was also made available on Laser Disc, but it has never been released on DVD. Information about the series is scarce and the show has never been subtitled, but I think some English dubbed episodes of Condorman aired on Hawaiian television in the late seventies.

The clip below features Condorman battling a robot-like monster called Sadora (aka Sadler), who was played by the Japanese actor and playwright Toshiaki Nishizawa. Sadora has help from his evil henchmen, but fortunately for Condorman, Sadora ends up killing many of his own men in the chaos that follows.

Fireman (aka Faiyâman/Magma Man) is an interesting tokusatsu series featuring a kyodai hero (giant hero) that aired in Japan on Nippon Television in 1973. It was made by Tsuburaya Productions, who was also responsible for the popular Ultraman series and Fireman had many things in common with that show.

In the series, the handsome Japanese actor Naoya Makoto (Goranger, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, etc.) plays the powerful hero Fireman. Fireman belongs to a race of unusual beings that live deep inside the earth. When earth is attacked by giant monster-like aliens (kaiju), Fireman rises to the surface, takes a human form and joins Japan’s Scientific Attack Force (S.A.F.) so he can help defeat the evil invaders. Much like Ultraman, Fireman is able to grow and become giant size in order to fight the various kaiju monsters he encounters. He also has many special powers and weapons.

Fireman was directed by Jun Oki and written by Bunkou Wakatsuki. Jun Oki had previously worked on various science fiction shows for Tsuburaya Productions such as Ultraseven (Urutora sebun, 1967), Ultraman Returns (Kaettekita Urutoraman, 1971) and the wonderful mystery/horror series Operation: Mystery! (Kaiki daisakusen, 1968), which I hope to write about in more detail soon. With Fireman, Oki was in control of the direction of the series as well as the special effects, which were often very impressive. Like Silver Kamen which I briefly reviewed here earlier, Fireman was a bit more adult than other similar shows that were airing in Japan at the time. The series often contained more mature stories and some unpredictable twists that were rather unusual for a show typically aimed at a young audience.

Fireman ran for 30 episodes and features a great soundtrack by Toru Fuyuki that was undoubtedly one of the Japanese composer’s best efforts. In the “Battle Sequence” featured in the clip below you can hear some of the terrific music that Toru Fuyuki composed for the series while Fireman fights a kaiju monster called Dorigoras. You’ll cheer, you’ll laugh, and you might even cry, but whatever your expectations are, few things can prepare for you for the action-packed wonder that is Fireman!

What do you get when you mix a plot that seems borrowed from Jules Verne with comic book style heroes and villains that would make Batman envious, costume designs that could be right out of Mario Bava’s Diabolik, combined with a mad dash of James Bond and pulp style adventure? You get the terrifically fun and entertaining Japanese science fiction and fantasy film Latitude Zero (Ido zero daisakusen, 1969) directed by Ishiro Honda!

Honda’s name should be recognizable to most fans of Japanese science fiction films since he’s responsible for the original Godzilla (Gojira, 1954) and many other terrific movies including Rodan (Sora no daikaijû Radon, 1956), The Mysterians (Chikyu Boeigun, 1957), Mothra (Mosura, 1961), Attack of the Mushroom People (Matango, 1963) and Frankenstein Conquers the World (Furankenshutain tai chitei kaijû Baragon, 1965).

Latitude Zero is an often-overlooked film in Honda’s impressive body of work and considered a lesser science fiction effort from Toho Studios. The movie definitely has its flaws, including some of the most shoddy looking movie monsters you’re likely to ever see. But the entertainment value, great cast and amazing look of the sets more than make up for the film’s flaws. As a matter of fact, it could be argued that they sort of add to the film’s unusual charm. Thankfully a new audience of science fiction fans will be able to discover Latitude Zero and make up their own minds about the movie since Media Blasters has recently released a spectacular two disc DVD presentation of the film with lots of terrific bonus materials including two versions of Latitude Zero (the original Japanese release with English subtitles and the original American release in English), interviews with the Japanese film crew and an image gallery.

In 1969 Ishiro Honda made Latitude Zero at Toho Studios with a Japanese crew and American producers and writers. One of these producers was fellow director Don Sharp. Although Sharp is only credited with producing Latitude Zero, the movie often seems more like a collaborative effort between both men since it differs from Honda’s previous films in various ways. Don Sharp made many entertaining genre movies during the sixties such as Curse of the Fly (1965), The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), Our Man in Marrakesh (1966), Rocket to the Moon (1967) and Psychomania (1971). He also made two good films for Hammer Studios (The Kiss of the Vampire, 1963 and Rasputin: The Mad Monk, 1966) and directed episodes of terrific television shows like The Avengers and The Champions. Sharp’s creative influence on Latitude Zero seems rather hard to miss and he may have contributed some of his own ideas to the film.

These are just assumptions on my part and the interviews with the Japanese crew members that appear on the new DVD don’t confirm my suspicions. They do make it clear that the American and Japanese film crews had trouble working together. In the interviews that appear on the DVD the Japanese crew complains a lot about the way Hollywood was making films in the sixties. Compared to Japan where directors were often given full control of the movies they made, American producers were used to having control and making creative decisions. Producers clearly flexed their financial muscles on the set of Latitude Zero and this clash of basic movie-making sensibilities obviously caused a lot of tension between the international cast and crew. I only wish Media Blasters had included some interviews with the American crew on the new DVD so viewers could hear their side of the fascinating behind-the-scene action on the Latitude Zero set.

Latitude Zero begins when a couple of scientists (Akira Takarada and Masumi Okada) and one American reporter (Richard Jaeckel) find themselves lost at sea after an underwater explosion and are rescued by a submarine run by Captain Craig McKenzie (Jospeh Cotten) along with his beautiful assistant Dr. Anne Barton (Linda Haynes) and tough henchman (Susumu Kurobe). Captain McKenzie takes the three men to a mysterious underwater world known as Latitude Zero where scientists and artists have secretly gathered together to create an international utopian society without government interference. Of course, all is not well in Latitude Zero and the men soon find out that the utopian city is under constant attack from an evil genius known as Malic (Cesar Romero) and his two wicked mistresses Lucretia (Patricia Medina) and Kroger (Hikaru Kuroki). After Malic kidnaps another Japanese scientist and his daughter who are making their way to Latitude Zero, Captain McKenzie invites the three men to strap on some jet packs and head out on a mission to save the scientist and his daughter with the hope of putting an end to Malic’s reign of terror. As the adventure unfolds the men are forced to fight off giant bloodthirsty rats, man-like bat creatures and finally a strange giant size beast that is part lion and part vulture.

The film takes a somewhat unusual anti-war stance that is probably due to the times in which it was made. In 1969 the American war in Vietnam was raging and parts of Japan were still under American occupation. Students in both countries were often involved in protests against the war. In the film, the citizens of Latitude Zero don’t use violence against their enemies. Instead of aggressively attacking them, they mostly use protective measures and the idea of a peaceful utopian culture that is home to multiple people from various nations must have seemed extremely appealing at the time.

As I mentioned above, the film brings together a wonderful international cast that includes many popular Japanese actors who appeared in countless science fiction and fantasy films, as well as the great American actor Jospeh Cotten and his real-life wife, the talented actress Patricia Medina. Cotten is one of my favorite actors and I love watching him in anything, so I really enjoyed him as Captain Craig McKenzie even if he’s obviously a little too old for the role. Patricia Medina manages to steal just about every scene she’s in with Cesar Romero and both actors seem to really be enjoying themselves on the set. Supposedly Cotton and Medina decided to appear in the film so they could work together and spend time in Japan, but unfortunately they only have one scene together in the movie.

The amazing Eiji Tsuburaya was responsible for the special effects in Latitude Zero and he did a great job on many of the miniatures and set designs, but much of the film’s backdrops are made up of impressive matte paintings. The creature designs on the other hand leave a lot to be desired. Most of the monsters featured in the movie are obviously men wearing rather shabby costumes or poorly constructed puppets. The climactic battle at the end of the film is somewhat marred by a lion with vulture wings that looks like it belongs on the Island of Misfit Toys created by Rankin/Bass for their Christmas special Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964).

Even with its obvious flaws, muddled script and ridiculous plot-twists, Latitude Zero has a lot to offer adventurous viewers and I’m really glad that Media Blasters has made the effort to release the film in a lavish two disc collection DVD package. The new Media Blasters DVD marks the first time that this film has been made available to American audiences in any format and it’s easily one of my favorite DVD releases of the year. The restored widescreen print of the film looks fantastic and I was also impressed with their choice to use the original Japanese poster art for the DVD case. If you’re a fan of Japanese Tokusatsu films or just want to see an entertaining science fiction and fantasy movie with a good cast, then I highly recommend giving the movie a look. Latitude Zero is currently available from Amazon for only $14.99 (it normally retails for $19.95).

If you’d like to see more screen shots from the film please visit my Latitude Zero Flickr Gallery. The movie contains so much fabulous eye-candy that I hard time selecting which images to share.

Begining this week, I’ll be welcoming a new regular contributor to Cinebeats who calls himself T3rtiumQuid. T3rtiumQuid will be sharing short “Battle Sequence” clips from rare and hard-to-see Japanese tokusatsu television shows and films produced during the ’60s and ’70s, and I’ll be writing about them. Most of the shows and movies featured in these clips are not available outside of Japan and should appeal to anyone who enjoys vintage Japanese science fiction and fantasy.

The first Battle Sequence is taken from the Sun-Hong/TBS produced superhero series Silver Kamen (or Shiruba Kamen / Silver Mask) which aired in Japan from November 1971 to May 1972. There is basically no English information readily available about the show that I’m aware of, but I can tell you that early episodes of Silver Kamen are credited to the acclaimed Japanese director Akio Jissoji and his cinematographer Masao Nakabori. Akio Jissoji passed away in 2006 and his last film was a modern remake of Silver Kamen that was released in Japan a month after he died.

In many ways the original Silver Kamen series is typical of lots of other Japanese superhero shows. It featured a masked hero who does battle with various evil kaijin (monsters or space aliens) in an effort to save humanity and he has many unusual powers and gadgets. The difference between Silver Kamen and other superhero shows that were airing in Japan at the time, such as Ultraman and Mirrorman (or Mirror Mask), was the dark edge that the show had. The early episodes of Silver Kamen were also creatively shot and in some ways more adult then a lot of similar shows that were airing on Japanese television at the time. After 11 episodes, Silver Kamen started to loose it’s edge and it took a new and more “positive” direction. The Silver Kamen series was transformed into Silver Kamen Giant, but it still didn’t really find an audience and the series finally came to an end after 26 epsiodes.

In the following clip, the original Silver Kamen (played by Toshio Shiba) fights it out with a nasty kaijin called Tigris. If you pay attention to the clip, you’ll notice that Tigris’ costume catches on fire during the battle. I’m unclear on all the details, but it seems that Tigris’ costume caught fire prematurely and the actor playing Tigris was almost seriously burned during the fight. Thankfully for viewers the show must go on, and it did!

One of the great action stars of Japanese cinema turns 74 today and I’d like to wish Joe “Dirty Joker” Shishido a very Happy Birthday! It’s hard to put into words all the joy that Joe has managed to give me over the past 18 years or so since I first discovered his work, but I will say that whenever I’m asked what my favorite films are Youth of the Beast (1963), Gate of Flesh (1964) and Branded to Kill (1967) are all films that instantly come to mind. Joe made many incredible films in the sixties, but he’s still acting today and has never really stopped.

Joe (or Jo) got his start in acting in 1954 after he auditioned for the Nikkatsu film studios. He began appearing in action films almost immediately, but he wasn’t getting the tough guy roles he wanted. Like many actors he ended up undergoing some plastic surgery to alter his appearance and after the surgery Joe went on to appear in some of Nikkatsu’s most popular action films and he quickly became a star. He often worked with the great Japanese director Seijun Suzuki and together they made some of the best Japanese films of the sixties.

Joe Shishido has appeared in almost 300 movies, but unfortunately most of them are not available in the US. I would love to see more of Joe’s sixties era Nikkatsu films find their way onto DVD. Besides lots of crime films, Joe also made some Japanese westerns or “sukiyaki westerns” in the sixties that look amazing, but haven’t been seen much outside of Japan. Hopefully more of Joe’s films will be made available on DVD for American audiences in the future!

Besides acting, Joe Shishido is also an accomplished author in Japan and he has written many cookbooks and even hosted a long-running popular cooking show. He also sings and has recorded a few albums. To celebrate Joe’s birthday, I thought I’d share one of the hard to find Japanese songs he recorded for the film Rokudenashi Kagyo in 1961.

- Listen to Joe sing Rokudenashi Kagyo

Recommended Joe Shishido films on DVD:
- The Trap (1996)
- The Stairway to the Distant Past (1995)
- The Most Terrible Time in My Life (1994)
- 8 Man (1992)
- Doomed Megalopolis (1988) - An amazing anime film that Joe did voice work for
- Bloody Territories (1969)
- Branded to Kill (1967)
- Gate of Flesh (1964)
- Youth of the Beast (1963)

Recommended Links:
- Dirty Joker (Joe Shishido’s Official Website)
- Yaju no (a great Joe Shishido fansite)
- Joe Shishido at Wikipedia

There were some good DVD re-releases this week such as the Special Collector’s Edition of Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974) and a Deluxe Edition of Richard Lester’s Help! (1965). But my DVD pick of the week is the Kino/KimStim release of the Japanese Roman Porno film Tattooed Flower Vase (aka Kashin no Irezumi: Ureta Tsubo; 1976) directed by Masaru Konuma. Kino released four of Konuma’s Pink films in association with KimStim on Region-1 NTSC DVD this week. The other three Konuma films now available are Cloistered Nun: Runa’s Confession (aka Shudojo Runa no Kokuhaku, 1976), Wife to be Sacrificed (aka Ikenie Fujin; 1974) and Erotic Diary of an Office Lady (aka OL Kanno Nikki: Ah! Watashi no Naka de; 1977). Only Wife to be Sacrificed has been available in the U.S. on DVD before now.

I’ve only had the opportunity to see Tattooed Flower Vase, but it’s a beautiful piece of erotica with a dark sadistic edge. My experience with Konuma’s work is minimal at best, but I’ve found his early films to be visually impressive and smartly done even if they often lack the interesting social and political themes that can be found in more experimental pink films made by independent directors such as Koji Wakamatsu.

Masaru Konuma worked for the Nikkatsu studio system during the seventies and early eighties making Roman Porno films, which are a type of Pink film mainly concerned with eroticism and aesthetics. In particular Japanese eroticism and aesthetics that often confuse and confound western audiences and critics. Konuma still works for Nikkatsu making adult films but the “golden age” of Roman Porno has come and gone.

The director’s 1976 film Tattooed Flower Vase stars the lovely Naomi Tani (often referred to as one of the “queens” of Japanese erotica) as a widowed doll maker named Michiyo with a beautiful daughter Takako (Takako Kitagawa). The two women live together in a sort of quiet solitude and appear to have an unusual bond with sexual undertones. When Michiyo is drugged and taken advantage of by a doll shop owner, her erotic passions are aroused and she begins to obsess over her past sexual experiences with a deceased Kabuki actor. Things get more complicated after Michiyo’s daughter is involved in a car accident with a handsome young man named Hideo, who ends up being the son of her dead lover. Both mother and daughter begin to vie for Hideo’s attention and as the story unfolds Michiyo becomes more and more aroused by her memories. Michiyo’s erotic adventures include a passionate fling with a tattoo artist who covers her body in a beautiful traditional Japanese tattoo. Her elaborate tattoo design represents a classic Kabuki play about a woman who transforms into a snake so she can pursue her lover. In some ways Michiyo undergoes a similar transformation after she gets tattooed.

Masaru Konuma began working as an assistant director at Nikkatsu studios in the sixties and he has praised the work of the brilliant Japanese director Seijun Suzuki, who also worked at Nikkatsu. I don’t know if the two men ever worked together during the ’60s, but Konuma’s creative use of light, space and framing seems to echo Suzuki’s work at times. Tattooed Flower Vase is a lovely looking film that makes impressive use of its Kabuki themes and traditional music. I also enjoyed the way the director used traditional Japanese Washi paper dolls in Tattooed Flower Vase to reinforce particular themes.

As I mentioned above, Naomi Tani plays a doll maker in Tattooed Flower Vase and she is often photographed within the film making dolls or caressing them. She has a special talent for making Kabuki style Washi paper dolls, which obviously reference her passionate relationship with a dead Kabuki actor. The dolls also seem to symbolize the way that the women sometimes play and toy with the male characters in the movie

Masaru Konuma’s Roman Porno films are clearly designed to arouse a viewers mind and body, and if you’re bothered by explicit sexuality in films then you should probably avoid them. On the other hand, early Roman Porno films such as Tattooed Flower Vase are more erotic than pornographic, and they contain subtle nudity and censored genitalia. Having some understanding of Japanese erotica will help western viewers better appreciate the films erotic themes and the way Konuma presents various sexual acts, which could probably be seen as misogynistic or even bizarre to some shortsighted viewers.

The Tattooed Flower Vase is currently available at Amazon and it features a beautiful anamorphic (16:9) widescreen print of the film with optional English subtitles. Extras include a theaterical trailer and a brief text biography on director Masaru Konuma, which unfortunately is rather dull and uninformative. It only seems to echo the limited information about Konuma that can already be found at Wikipedia. This is a minor complaint though, and I’m grateful that Kino/KimStim are making these rare early Konuma films available on DVD.

You can find more images from the film in my Tattooed Flower Vase Flickr Gallery.

One of my favorite Japanese directors is the talented Kinji Fukasaku. When I read about the Close-Up Blog-a-thon being held by Matt Zoller Seitz at The House Next Door today, many scenes from his movies started rushing through my head. Kinji Fukasaku often used close-ups in his films to convey mood and action, so I thought I’d share a fascinating moment from Fukasaku’s terrific crime film Blackmail Is My Life (aka Kyokatsu Koso Waga Jinsei, 1968).

In the following moments represented by the still shots below, a young thug visits an unusual adult club with his lover and pretends to be someone he is not. He is fully aware that any actions he takes while he is at the club will be filmed by some criminals hiding behind a one-way mirror. The criminals think the man is unaware of their cameras and they plan to blackmail him with the film they’re shooting. At first the man is a bit nervous about having a camera film his every move, but he soon starts to enjoy the idea of being watched while it’s happening.

Fukasaku films the entire thing using close-ups that zoom in closer and closer as the scene unfolds, and it adds an uncomfortable intimacy to the action taking place on screen. These moments in the film manage to be erotic, sleazy and even a bit humorous all at once, while showing very little bare skin. It also leaves the audience in the somewhat uncomfortable position of being voyeurs who are unknowingly being observed.

Kinji Fukasaku was a brilliant director and Blackmail is My Life is the work of a man who was fully aware of the power of his camera. Many of his films are filled with creative uses of the “close-up” and this is just one interesting example.