FUKASAKU 02

Kinji Fukasaku's childhood was a burnt wasteland caused by the war.
After the war, he could not bear the way Japan was pretending to be clean and prosperous only on the surface.
In 1964, the Tokyo Olympics were held to make the Japanese people forget about the war.
Not wanting foreigners to see the dirty side of Japan, conservative politicians forced the poor and Asian people into reclaimed land along Tokyo Bay.

Eventually, these slums were demolished as well.

”Okami to Buta to Ningen” (1964) credit:Toei

Fukasaku continued to film on location in the port slums that existed at the time. These slums appear repeatedly in his work. Fukasaku has described them as "resistance through film."

Fukasaku became a film director, and expressed the various angers he had experienced.
At the invitation of veteran left-wing film director Satsuo Yamamoto, a member of the Japanese Communist Party, he made a left-wing film as an independent production company.

He also made an anti-war film that denounced war crimes as an independent production company.

The film was well received by film critics who normally denounce violence and eroticism, but Fukasaku was not convinced.

"I made a horrible movie that everyone turns away from, so why am I being praised like an honor student?"

(Incidentally, when meeting people for the first time, Harada introduces the film "Zashikiro" as "an anti-war film that contains violent and cruel depictions.")

He also made a film based on a novel by Edogawa Ranpo, starring Akihiro Miwa and Yukio Mishima. He wanted to make it a more radical and fantastical film, but it didn't work out as well as he had hoped. After the film was completed, Fukasaku said, "I should have asked Shuji Terayama to write the script."

While participating in the anti-Security Treaty movement, Fukasaku continued to make several films.

In 1971, a law was enacted to strip film directors of their copyrights, and film companies with long traditions began to decline, with Daiei going bankrupt and Nikkatsu transitioning to a company specializing in Romantic Porn.

Around that time, the United Red Army's Asama-Sanso incident occurred, and Fukasaku was engrossed in watching the television broadcast.The chaotic desires and questions swirling in Fukasaku's body and mind did not completely match the films he had made up until then.
Something was different.
Fukasaku later met Sugawara Bunta, who would later declare his liberalism, and in 1972 he directed "Gendai Yakuza Hitokiri Yota."
This film is filled with violent scenes, and is a film that poured all the frustration, doubts, and anger in his heart.
After watching the anti-Security Treaty protests and the live coverage of the United Red Army's barricades, he used rough hand-held camera shooting throughout the film.
Furthermore, the entire film was exposed four times. He shot without lighting or with only a small light source, and when developing, the contrast was increased four times. This resulted in the grain of the screen being extremely rough.

Furthermore, Fukasaku made extensive use of stop-motion, still images created through technical processing in a film lab, resulting in a highly grainy and violent quality.

credit:Toei

Fukasaku said, "I didn't want to use any lighting if possible."
Indoor scenes are almost completely dark, with only the silhouettes of people moving violently.
This work was well received by the producer, and he was appointed as the director of "Battles Without Honor and Humanity."
Fukasaku also expressed rough image quality in "Battles Without Honor and Humanity."
This rough image quality (or "low quality" in today's terms) aptly expressed the postwar chaos and deception in Japan, and the resentment towards the strong.

The image quality that the director and cameraman had worked on should not be subjected to excessive digital remastering.
However, when "Battles Without Honor and Humanity" was released on Blu-ray, the entire film was thoroughly washed and sterilized. The atmosphere that expressed the postwar chaos in Japan was erased.

Originally, Fukasaku hated Japan's false beauty and deliberately went to the trouble of roughening the images, but the capitalist class has once again completely erased the rough technology that has been engraved into history.

This series of phenomena is closely intertwined with the neo-liberalization of the conservative ruling party and large corporations.
The Tokyo Olympics, which were forced through in 2020 despite the many corruption cases that were uncovered, were well received by conservatives, those who flock to vested interests, those who want to forget reality and dream, and IOC President Bach and others, and the Olympics are being planned in Japan again. In the shadow of the Olympics, people suffering from poverty and misfortune are once again being ignored.
Furthermore, the Japan Restoration Party and the Japanese government, which has been called the second Liberal Democratic Party and has been churning out numerous corrupt and criminal people every day, are forcing through the World Expo in 2025, following on from the 1970s, and are also building casinos.

What else can we (at least for Harada) do to vent these angers other than by making violent films?

"Bakuto Kaisan-shiki" (1968) credit:Toei

Fukasaku continued to paint huge petrochemical complexes as symbols of Japan's deception. His depictions of strikes are reminiscent of the Security Treaty protests.

"Chizome no Daimon" (1970) credit:Toei

The signs read "Site for petrochemical complex construction" and "Oppose eviction."

”Gunki hatameku shitani” （1970） credit:Toho, Shinsei-eigasha

Fukasaku continued to criticize the postwar military buildup. In this film, he even criticizes the emperor.This film was produced at a studio born out of the "First Independent Production Movement" and was financially supported and distributed by Toho, the company that once carried out the Red Purge. Times had changed since the Red Purge, and the 1960s and 1970s were a time when citizen movements and labor unions were stronger than those in power.

"Gendai Yakuza Hitokiri Yota"(1972) credit:Toei

We have heard that Fukasaku's films are not often shown overseas because of the extreme depictions of violence that are disliked, especially by female audiences.

"Jingi naki tatakai"(1973-1976) credit:Toei

The appeal of this series was its violently rough image quality. It was a work that should never have been digitally remastered excessively.

*All images shown here were captured by us from the original version before the excessive original remastering.

"Film Director Kinji Fukasaku"

FUKASAKU　01　https://kiyubaru.exblog.jp/35850025/