Hey folks, Harry here... One helluva wonderful filmmaker passed away yesterday... Kinji Fukasaku - a director of some 62 Japanese/Multi-National/Cool movies has passed away.
He recently rocketed into the more mainstream (at least in terms of the modern film geek world) notoriety with the creation of the startlingly brilliant Black Satire For those film geeks that have been digging deeper into foriegn films for quite some time... This loss is larger than simply the death of a one trick pony.
Kinji Fukasaku has made cool movies in 5 seperate decades. He's been a both maligned and hailed director for some time. For me personally... Fukasaku first came to my attention in THE GREEN SLIME issue of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND - where the poster art for that Hit Song producing film appeared. As a kid - I had over 150 copies of that issue stored (along with thousands of other issues of F.M.O.F.) - but that issue always lept out to me because of three things. One the art reminded me of BARBARELLA and I wanted a sequel to BARBARELLA badly. Second - The title GREEN SLIME was simply too good to pass up - I mean every child knows that GREEN SLIME eats human skin and is the stuff of monster blood... As if to underline this - Today Father Geek was painting the Geek HQ's Ackeroom Forrest Green, and as my 2 1/2 year old Nephew saw the fresh paint applied, Kublakhan exclaimed, "Monster Blood Ouchies!" The child knew instantly what it was - and to not touch... because it would desolve the skin and meat from his bones - our cause giant scorpions to grow. Lastly - that hit song GREEEEEENNNNNN SLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMMMMEEEE!!!! It was right up there with "DIG DIG DIG DIG" from Snow White, "Ramblin Man" by the Allman Brothers and "Pinball Wizard" from I forget WHO... as my favorite song as a child. I played the film recently for the SATURDAY MORNING KIDS CLUB and it went over great...
Just like when Quentin Tarantino showed the Kid's Club MESSAGE FROM SPACE years ago! A film that is at once derivative of the original STAR WARS - but in turn had action scenes that Lucas copied (or at least borrowed from) for both EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and RETURN OF THE JEDI. Besides - any science fiction movie that features Sonny "BADASS" Chiba - (throw in ATTACK OF THE NEPTUNE MEN too) definitely earns it's geek stripes.
So as you can see... LOOOoooooOOong before Fukasaku made the greatest Children's Grimm Fairy Tale in BATTLE ROYALE - he was making non-traditional Children's Films... which were bloody, violent and entertaining as hell.
HOWEVER - That's not all that Kinji did... In the Seventies he did a series of absolutely fantastic Japanese hard-nosed Crime pictures that are simply way too hard to find on video or DVD or any region... though you can find some of them. I would recommend: BLACKMAIL IS MY LIFE, MODERN YAKUZA: OUTLAW KILLER, GAMBLER: FOREIGN OPPOSITION, THE YAKUZA PAPERS (especially THE YAKUZA PAPERS which simply kicks all sorts of ass and spawned 4 sequels... which you should also check out!)... among others...
Then in the late seventies / early eighties ol Kinji Fukasaku started making fantasy/sword/samurai films (not always all those genres at once, but sometimes YES!). Check out (if you can) THE YAGYU CONSPIRACY starring Yagyu Jubei - a legendary Samurai as played to scene chewing perfection by Sonny Chiba... or the following film THE FALL OF AKO CASTLE also starring the man-god Chiba.
In fact - if you really want to know why Sonny Chiba is playing Hattori Hanzo in Tarantino's KILL BILL... track down the films that Sonny made with Kinji Fukasaku... This is the real cream of Chiba's career. From those crime films in the sixties like THE VIGILANTE IN THE FUNKY HAT to THE DRIFTING DETECTIVE to GANG VS G-MEN to TRIPLE CROSS through to the samurai films like the two above and LEGEND OF THE EIGHT SAMURAI, SAMURAI REINCARNATION. It is in Kinji's direction of Sonny Chiba that Quentin really saw the seeds of Hattori Hanzo I believe. I know that for me... it is these films, not the STREET FIGHTER movies, that I pictured the nobility of Hattori Hanzo as played by Chiba.
Kinji is probably best known as far as the real mainstream goes for TORA! TORA! TORA! which he directed the Japanese parts for... and a film called VIRUS which starred the astonishing cool cult cast of: Bo Svenson, Robert Vaughn, Sonny Chiba, Ken Ogata, Edward James Olmos, George Kennedy, Chuck Connors, Glenn Ford, Olivia Hussey and the man that's so cool he'll freeze your blood... HENRY SILVA!!! Now that... THAT is a cool cast - this is the film where the only surviving people on the entire planet are the scientists working in Antarctica when the end of times come... GEEKS WILL INHERIT -- That's right guys and gals with computer skills and math and science and chemistry and biology... At the ass end of the world - SCIENCE WILL RULE! hehehe... Sorry, I'm a fan of this film!
Then of course there is BATTLE ROYALE... Indeed, BATTLE ROYALE is a startling work of super-genius. The film that needed the support of every American Film Critic to bring it to the public's attention... that needed an American Distributor with the balls to risk the money to bring what would assuredly be a SIGNIFICANT film to the United States - that would be culturally discussed in every level of society... It would've and still could be a phenomenon in this country. It is the great film that needs to be released in the United States!
Meanwhile - to underline Kinji's absolute love... passionate pursuit of his dreams... After he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, instead of retiring and spending his remaining days seeking out treatment - he knew he was going to die - and wanted to go out directing... So he began shooting the sequel to BATTLE ROYALE - About a week or two ago he turned over direction to his son, who wrote both chapters, while in intensive care as he left this world.
My hope... The thing that right now I wish would happen - Is that Kinji Fukasaku will get the recognition he so richly deserved in life in death... that his films get treated to great DVD care... and that his films are made accessible to collectors and the general public. This was a significant filmmaker that passed away. Someone who made movies with balls and ideas and passion... limited only by his own thoughts and passions... which meant there were no limits at all...
Harry & co.,
I don't know if anyone has passed this along to you already, but Japanese filmmaker Kinji Fukasaku passed away Sunday, January 12th at 1am. He was 72 years old. The consumate filmmaker, he was still prepping Battle Royale 2. A heartfelt wish for happiness and recovery goes out to his family.
Toei has also set up a website for Battle Royale 2 that contains a 15 second teaser trailer. It can be located here:
Thanks for your time
