Customer Reviews

Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film

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When I originally came to this page, it was to order another copy of this book for a friend. But then I saw two pretty unfair reviews here and felt the need to chime in with a much different take on the subject. Both seem to be upset about what they think is an obsessively encyclopedic bent in the book - a perception that seems unwarranted. This methodical rundown of the films of the directors (and two actors) is exactly why I bought the book - to fill in the gaps in my knowledge of these filmmakers' work. I more than got what I wanted. Brown's complaint in his review laments that there are plenty of other outlaw Japanese directors that are more deserving than those included - the book's author addresses this very subject in the introduction, naming scores of directors, actors and actresses he would have liked to have included but was unable to because of matters of space. I also have to rebut the complaints of "feeling at sea" with the book's approach to the films and Japanese film history and film industry. This book is written for people who already have seen a few Japanese genre movies, have picked up on several of the films of the "masters" included in the book and want to know more. And it delivers. No writer in English, to my knowledge, has ever bothered to investigate or write about the numerous films Seijun Suzuki made before 1963's YOUTH OF THE BEAST. But Chris D. gives descriptions of scores of Suzuki's fifties and early sixties output, and it was greatly illuminating to this reader. Likewise, his chapter (with a nice long interview) on enfant terrible underground filmmaker Koji Wakamatsu is one of the most detailed and in-depth ever to appear in English and covered twice as many of Wakamatsu's films as Jack Hunter's laudable but more scattershot approach in his "Eros In Hell" book. The Wakamatsu chapter - for me - was worth the price of the book alone! Likewise the chapters on such other filmmakers as Kinji Fukasaku (BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR AND HUMANITY series), actress Meiko Kaji and lesser known filmmakers like Teruo Ishii, Junya Sato and Kazuo Ikehiro. When I purchased this book initially, I bought it at a booksigning at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles where author Chris D. works as a programmer. I met him, and I know from talking to him that night that he was disappointed in the publisher's use of the pictures that he had provided to them, using only a third of the number and reproducing them in a fairly slipshod manner. I've also heard that Chris D. was instrumental in bringing Miike's AUDITION, Shinoda's PALE FLOWER and the first of Meiko Kaji's FEMALE CONVICT films to cult DVD notoriety here in the USA. I bought this book because I wanted to learn more about these filmmakers...and I did! It has its faults, but it is well worth the purchase price - the author's more aesthetics-oriented (although he keeps it from ever getting too intellectual), less-mainstream, more serious approach is preferable (for me anyway) to the goofy fun and chaotic organization of books like Patrick Macias' "Tokyoscope" (which I still like, too). And yes, this Chris D. is the same guy who is singer/songwriter of The Flesh Eaters!

I really enjoyed this book. I can see why the other reveiwers might not have. Chris D really assumes you are already deeply into these films (which I am). I have been enjoying Chris's articles on Japanese flicks for many years now and was hoping this was going to be his Ency of Yakuza flicks he has been working on for so long. It's not, but I found it to be agreat source of info on Japanese film makers' most of whose work can only be found by people who really have the time to do alot of digging. Essential for the big time fan of the Japanese action films.

Around the 1950's, the studio system of Japanese film started to show cracks. Not large cracks, but big enough that a few ambitious rebels could squeeze their fingers in, and start breaking molds and showing their own individual styles. Crazy psychedelic colors, hot warrior chicks with big floppy hats and big guns, rice-sniffing assassins...Japanese film got a whole lot more interesting.

Author Chris Desjardins describes these "outlaw masters" as "the directors coming out of the Japanese production lines of the late fifties, the sixties and the early seventies: genre filmmakers who made genre movies usually labeled as samurai, yakuza, horror, pink, etc, but who pushed the envelope beyond the usual conventions in some way, either in style or content. " These are the men and women who didn't mind working in the "b-films" because of the freedom it gave them to create their own vision and keep pushing boundaries of sex, violence, politics and style.

In much the same way as No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema, "Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film" springs from a series of film festivals and director retrospectives, in this case from The American Cinematheque in Los Angeles. Film programmer Dennis Bartok and author Chris Desjardins shared a passion for the edgy, hard-boiled cinema that came from Japan during these times, and the actors and directors who exemplified it. They put together the "Outlaw Masters" series starting in 1997, and have been bringing these fantastic films to a wider audience ever since.

This film festival gave them insight and access to these directors, many of whom were not even aware that their work was appreciated outside of Japan. Each section of this book contains a short biography and filmography, followed by an interview. There are fourteen featured in all, twelve directors and two actors. Some of these, like Fukusaku Kinji (Battle Royale, Battles Without Honor & Humanity), Sonny Chiba (Street Fighter Saga, Kill Bill), Suzuki Seijun (Underworld Beauty, Tokyo Drifter) and Okamoto Kihachi (The Sword of Doom). Some, like Kaji Meiko (Lady Snowblood) and Ichii Teruo (Horrors of Malformed Men) are a little more obscure except to hardcore fans. As well as these classic film-folk, two of Japan's "modern outlaws" are included as well, Miike Takashi (Ichi the Killer) and Kurosawa Kiyoshi (Cure).

All of them are fascinating, giving intelligent and informed interviews. Many of these interviews, in fact, are featured in video form as bonus features on some of these director's DVDs. I know I have seen a few of them, but it is a real treasure to have them all collected in book form.

It is also fantastic to live in the age of the DVD. If I had picked up "Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film" a few years ago, I probably would have been frustrated at the lack of access to all of these cool flicks I was reading about. Nowadays, however, almost all of them are only a search away. If you like Japanese film, you are seriously going to enjoy this book.

This book suffers from an over zealous otaku-like (obsessed) chronicle of interviews with little or no connection to the films in question. Each section starts with a run down bio of the actor/actress/director followed by an interview some of which are truly lost in translation or mired by western assumptions on part of the author. This is apparent when Chris D. makes assumptions about women in Japan a number of times. During the interviews a number of films and directors are mentioned but if you are not a avid collector who knows every little thing about Japanese cinema, you'll be left scratching your head. The "fantastic illustrated stills" lack quality control; no color photos here, and many of the actors/actresses in the photos go unnamed. "Outlaw Masters" is a bit misleading, since many truly outrageous directors with the exception of Takashi Miike are overlooked. For what it's worth, it's a collection of interviews published for the public record. A much more cohesive work would be "Eros in Hell: Sex, Blood, and Madness in Japanese Cinema" by Jack Hunter published by Creation Books.

This book left me a bit disappointed - with it's title,I was hoping for an introduction to the works of many great film makers in which I would discover their talents and merits,and serve as a guidebook for future movie rentals and purchases.Instead,I found the majority of the book somewhat confusing from my Western point-of-view: each "outlaw master" is given a brief career overview,followed by an interview.The interviews are chock-full of references that will be lost on all but the most devoted Japanese film historian: seeing as most(?) of these films have never been screened here,I feel that the audience for this book will be somewhat limited.I would have preferred more in-depth discussion on each respective career,focusing on the movies and their content,as opposed to the author trying to impress the subject with his encyclopedic film knowledge.