Читать книгу A Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors - Alexander Jacoby - Страница 18

(February 16, 1929–August 30, 1992)

五社英雄

The work of Hideo Gosha inhabits a middle ground between the historical detail and physical realism of jidai-geki and the pure action of chanbara. Initially employed as a television director at Fuji Television, he learned to convey essential plot points economically and to stage sudden climaxes effectively. The success of his most famous TV series, Three Outlaw Samurai (Sanbiki no samurai), earned him an invitation to adapt it as a feature film for Shochiku in 1964. Influenced in style and content by Kurosawa, Gosha’s big screen debut was arguably his best work, combining razor-sharp black and white cinematography with narrative drive and incorporating some trenchant social commentary in its depiction of the ill treatment of farmers by a callous chamberlain.

This sympathy for the underdog was a recurrent feature of Gosha’s work. In Official Gold (Goyōkin, 1969), the inhabitants of a fishing village are murdered on the orders of a provincial aristocrat to prevent them from bearing witness to the theft of a shipload of the Shogunate’s gold, while the mad dog warrior protagonist of Tenchu (Hitokiri, 1969) is a pawn in a political game, first used, then discarded by his master. These were among Gosha’s most politically acute films, but here as elsewhere, the tone of his work was ultimately nihilistic. In Three Outlaw Samurai, despite the protection of the samurai, the farmers are too fearful to present their petition for better treatment to their lord, while in Tenchu, the anti-hero willingly sacrifices his own life in order to exact revenge on his betrayer.

Among Gosha’s other sixties films, Samurai Wolf (Kiba Ōkaminosuke, 1966) was a paradoxically terse yet overblown account of the conflict between a hired bodyguard and a hired killer. With its outlandish characterizations and exaggerated imagery, it was more reminscent of a spaghetti Western than an orthodox samurai picture. Secret of the Urn (Tange Sazen: Hien iaigiri, 1966) was an uncharacteristically lighthearted film about the one-eyed, one-armed samurai Sazen Tange; actually a remake of Sadao Yamanaka’s The Pot Worth a Million Ryo (Tange Sazen yowa: Hyakuman-ryō no tsubo, 1935), it lacked the original’s delicate blend of humor and pathos. Cash Calls Hell (Gohiki no shinshi, 1966), a rare gendai-geki, was a superior thriller about a convict on parole who agrees to commit murder at the request of a fellow prisoner. Its New Wave stylistic tics were often overemphatic, but it boasted superb monochrome photography and an impressively brooding lead performance from Tatsuya Nakadai.

In the seventies, Gosha’s approach became more conventionally generic. The Wolves (Shussho iwai, 1971), set against the historical backdrop of an amnesty granted to criminals at the time of the Showa Emperor’s accession, was an ordinary yakuza story, albeit with a visually striking festival climax. Bandits vs. Samurai Squadron (Kumakiri Nizaemon, 1978) was a bland chanbara. Hunter in the Dark (Yami no kariudo, 1979) was somewhat more individual, with the amnesiac ronin a quintessential Gosha “little man” protagonist, threatened by machinations that he does not understand. Nevertheless, the film’s narrative was excessively convoluted and the characterizations shallow.

Despite the machismo of these films, Gosha in the eighties acquired something of a reputation as a specialist in stories with strong women as protagonists. Gate of Flesh (Nikutai no mon, 1988) was the fifth adaptation of Taijirō Tamura’s novel about the lives of prostitutes during the Occupation, while Heat Haze (Kagerō, 1991) was a Showa-era revenge saga about a female professional gambler. Also notable among Gosha’s later work were Four Days of Snow and Blood (226, 1989), an account of the attempted military coup of February 26, 1936, and his last film, Oil Hell Murder (Onnagoroshi abura jigoku, 1992), a revenge tragedy derived from Chikamatsu.

Gosha has a high reputation among devotees of Japanese action genres; Alain Silver has cited Tenchu as “one of the most accomplished examples of the samurai genre since World War II.” Certainly, Gosha had a flair for orchestrating grisly, shocking moments: witness the image, in Hunter in the Dark, of a sword suspended from the ceiling, clutched by a severed hand. His swordfights had a brutal realism, placing much emphasis on spurting blood and the sound of metal penetrating flesh. Regrettably, he did not extend a comparable realism to his characters who rarely expanded beyond the confines of generic stereotyping. Gosha’s stylistic limitations exacerbated this flaw; adept at choreographing action, he was less skilled at handling the camera. His direction, with its frequent resort to zooms, close-ups, and slow motion, was content to rest on the surface, with the consequence that the impact of his films was generally more physical than emotional.

1964 Sanbiki no samurai / Three Outlaw Samurai

1965 Kedamono no ken / Sword of the Beast

1966 Gohiki no shinshi / Cash Calls Hell (lit. Five Violent Gentlemen)

Tange Sazen: Hien iaigiri / Secret of the Urn

Kiba Ōkaminosuke / Samurai Wolf

1967 Kiba Ōkaminosuke: Jigokugiri / Samurai Wolf: Hell Cut / Samurai Wolf 2

1969 Goyōkin / Official Gold / Goyokin / Steel Edge of Vengeance

Hitokiri / Tenchu! / Heaven’s Punishment / The Killer

1971 Shussho iwai / The Wolves / Prison Release Celebration (lit.)

1974 Bōryokugai / Street of Violence / Violent City

1978 Kumokiri Nizaemon / Bandits vs. Samurai Squadron (lit. Nizaemon Kumokiri)

1979 Yami no kariudo / Hunter in the Dark

1982 Kirūin Hanako no shōgai / Onimasa (lit. The Life of Hanako Kiruin )

1983 Yōkirō / The Geisha

1984 Kita no hotaru / Fireflies in the North

1985 Kai / The Oar

Usugeshō / Tracked / Light Makeup (lit.)

1986 Jittemai / Death Shadows (lit. Truncheon Dance)

Gokudō no onnatachi / Yakuza Wives

1987 Yoshiwara enjō / Tokyo Bordello / Yoshiwara Conflagration (lit.)

1988 Nikutai no mon / Gate of Flesh / Carmen 1945

1989 226 / Four Days of Snow and Blood

1991 Kagerō / Heat Haze

1992 Onnagoroshi abura jigoku / Oil Hell Murder