By Mark Schilling
2007
Paperback
154 pages
$16
This is just a heads up for fans of older Japanese films to be on the lookout for this book. It covers a period and genre of films that hasn’t received much attention outside of Japan and has very little written about it in English. From the late 1950’s to the early 70’s Nikkatsu produced boat loads of action films full of tough guys, beautiful dames, jazzy scores and hard edged dialogue. During the peak years over 100 films were coming out a year, but by the mid 60’s the entire Japanese film industry went into decline and the Nikkatsu action films began a slow fade as well. It had a short rejuvenation in the early 1970’s with a move to a more hip rock action genre with the Stray Cat series but by 1973 the company had switched over completely to their pink film content.
Schilling is a well-known expert on Japanese film with his current job reviewing films for the Japan Times, his programming involvement in the Udine Far East Film Festival and two previous books. He clearly shows affection for these films as well as an extensive knowledge of them and the actors and directors responsible for them. He first wrote this book as an accompaniment to a Nikkatsu Action Retrospective at Udine and has now expanded it for publication. The book is broken down into five sections – a history of Nikkatsu, the major actors, the major actresses, a few of the lesser billed actors and a few of the main directors. There are also a generous amount of color poster images strewn throughout the book. It is well written and easy to get through and to someone like me who knew absolutely nothing about this period very informative. As nice as this is, I would have appreciated it even more if Schilling had added three more sections for the uninformed – one with reviews of a number of his favorite films, another comparing Nikkatsu action films to the action films the other companies were producing – what made the Nikkatsu films unique - and thirdly a helpful listing of which of these films are currently available with English subtitles.
This third point of course points out the frustration of reading a book like this – as far as I know very few of these films are available with subtitles – a number of the Seijun Suzuki films certainly and a small smattering of some of the others such as Black Tight Killers. One positive though is that this may be changing. Currently some of the films that showed at the Udine Retro are slowly making their way around the United States thanks to the endeavors of Subway Cinema’s Marc Walkow and Nikkatsu is hoping to find a distributor in the states to take a package of these films. That would be delicious.
2007
Paperback
154 pages
$16
This is just a heads up for fans of older Japanese films to be on the lookout for this book. It covers a period and genre of films that hasn’t received much attention outside of Japan and has very little written about it in English. From the late 1950’s to the early 70’s Nikkatsu produced boat loads of action films full of tough guys, beautiful dames, jazzy scores and hard edged dialogue. During the peak years over 100 films were coming out a year, but by the mid 60’s the entire Japanese film industry went into decline and the Nikkatsu action films began a slow fade as well. It had a short rejuvenation in the early 1970’s with a move to a more hip rock action genre with the Stray Cat series but by 1973 the company had switched over completely to their pink film content.
Schilling is a well-known expert on Japanese film with his current job reviewing films for the Japan Times, his programming involvement in the Udine Far East Film Festival and two previous books. He clearly shows affection for these films as well as an extensive knowledge of them and the actors and directors responsible for them. He first wrote this book as an accompaniment to a Nikkatsu Action Retrospective at Udine and has now expanded it for publication. The book is broken down into five sections – a history of Nikkatsu, the major actors, the major actresses, a few of the lesser billed actors and a few of the main directors. There are also a generous amount of color poster images strewn throughout the book. It is well written and easy to get through and to someone like me who knew absolutely nothing about this period very informative. As nice as this is, I would have appreciated it even more if Schilling had added three more sections for the uninformed – one with reviews of a number of his favorite films, another comparing Nikkatsu action films to the action films the other companies were producing – what made the Nikkatsu films unique - and thirdly a helpful listing of which of these films are currently available with English subtitles.
This third point of course points out the frustration of reading a book like this – as far as I know very few of these films are available with subtitles – a number of the Seijun Suzuki films certainly and a small smattering of some of the others such as Black Tight Killers. One positive though is that this may be changing. Currently some of the films that showed at the Udine Retro are slowly making their way around the United States thanks to the endeavors of Subway Cinema’s Marc Walkow and Nikkatsu is hoping to find a distributor in the states to take a package of these films. That would be delicious.
