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Branded to Thrill: The Delirious Cinema of Suzuki Seijun

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This is the only book available for those few who manage to actually see some of Suzuki's incredible films. If you've managed to catch Branded to Kill or Tokyo Drifter at a festival or on video release, here is a starting point to chase down the rest of the films by Japan's most startling director. Amply illustrated with stills (B & W only, unfortunately as you miss the bold colour compositions that became a Suzuki trademark), and covering a selection of his films from 1959 through to 1981, with a complete filmography and a little background on the director, this book covers enough ground to give you a good sketch of the man and his work. However, there is still room for someone to write an English language definitive Suzuki reference.

With an output of 40 features in a 10 year period from 1956 - 1966 Suzuki was an incredibly prolific studio director for Nikkatsu (who specialised in Yakuza and "Roman Porno" -ie Romantic Pornography, or soft porn). However, he got increasingly sick of the hack scripts he was assigned to and began to turn his routine genre films into fractured, eccentric pieces full of visual bravado, garish colour, overtly theatrical staging and acting heavily influenced by Kabuki. He pushed the envelope too far with Branded to Kill and got the boot for making "incomprehensible" films. It seems that he was actually the victim of a cash crisis at Nikkatsu - he later sued for wrongful dismissal and won , but was rewarded with a blackball by the industry and a 10 year hiatus churning out essays and advertising to survive.

He is still around, doing occasional cameos (Cold Fever, playing Masatoshi Nagase's grandpa), scorning journalists and writing the most caustic advice column in Japan, "Ask Seijun".....