Tag: Japanese Cinema
Back in the 1970s, the names of Reiko Ike and Miki Sugimoto were on everyone’s lips. Hailed as the “queens of porno”, they not only became exploitation cinema royalty but burst through into mainstream pop culture. If you bought any random issue of Heibon Punch, Weekly Playboy, or one of the countless other men’s magazines
When Toei’s pinky violence line first appeared in 1970 it was an unstoppable force, and throughout the early 70s, it showed little signs of slowing down. 1973 in particular was a bumper year for pinky violence, with an excessive offering consisting of – two Girl Boss films, three Terrifying Girls’ High School films, two Female
Door is a 1988 Japanese psychological horror thriller written and directed by Banmei Takahashi with additional writing from Ataru Oikawa. Beginning his career in Pinku Eiga in the 70s, Takahashi has worked with some of the greats in the genre, such as Mamoru Watanabe and Koji Wakamatsu to name a few. He is notable for
Nowadays manga adaptations are commonplace, and often fairly inevitable – however, this wasn’t always the case. Prior to the 1970s, adaptations of manga were a rare sight, especially live-action ones. In 1969, predated by just two other live-action adult manga adaptations (Ko Kojima’s Sennin Buraku & Teruo Tanaka’s Crimson Bat), Daiei would take a step
In a career that spanned four decades, prolific novelist Shinji Fujiwara explored a wide range of genres in his work, though is most famed for his 1950s suspense stories. The widespread popularity of his work quickly lent itself to the medium of film, and he would eventually be dubbed “film’s favourite novelist” due to the
Science fiction, often preoccupied with technology and artificial beings, can sometimes seem overly intricate, neglecting the mundane facets of life. However, this stereotype is not only unfair but also doesn’t hold true for Junta Yamaguchi’s body of work. From his debut feature, Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020) Yamaguchi has masterfully blended the time travel
One of my current hobbies is searching thrift stores for weird, interesting, or hard-to-find DVDs. With streaming networks dominating the distribution channels, and more and more media disappearing from these networks before ever seeing a hard copy release, I feel somewhat like an archivist hunting for treasure. Albeit, this treasure is not found in majestical
With the turn of a new decade, new opportunities were sought by film studio Daiei. In 1970, Daiei on the verge of bankruptcy, entered into a partnership with fellow struggling studio Nikkatsu, forming Dainichi Eihai. By pooling their resources, the aim was to fight against Toei’s market dominance: by the 1970s Toei had perfected their
Death Powder is a 1986 Japanese cyberpunk body horror film, written and directed by Shigeru Izumiya. Izumiya is mostly known as a poet/folk singer with a career spanning from the 1970s that is still ongoing, with a huge discography of dozens of albums. Outside of music, Izumiya is a prolific actor who has over 150
Despite being one of Japan’s biggest film studios throughout the late 40s and 50s during the golden age of Japanese cinema, Daiei was struggling by the mid-60s and had to slash budgets for their productions. This eventually led to a merger with Nikkatsu in 1970, followed by bankruptcy in 1971. Somewhat overlooked is Daiei’s 1968-1969