Читать книгу A Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors - Alexander Jacoby - Страница 24

(b. April 4, 1932)

長谷部安春

Hasebe’s films are high on camp and low in intelligence, a combination that has earned him a cult reputation in some quarters. Having trained at Nikkatsu with Seijun Suzuki, he took the elder director’s fondness for absurd plots and stylized visuals to a disreputable extreme in films such as his debut, Black Tight Killers (Ore ni sawaru to abunai ze, 1966). This crazy pastiche of action movie conventions was admirable mainly for Akiyoshi Satani’s inventive art direction, but it established the director’s working relationship with tough/tender leading man Akira Kobayashi, who also starred in such serious yakuza films as Turf War (Shima wa moratta, 1968), Roughneck (Arakure, 1969) and Bloody Territories (Kōiki bōryoku: Ryūketsu no shima, 1969). The last of these, about a classically honorable yakuza clan being edged out by unscrupulous successors, achieved moments of elegiac power among its scenes of nihilistic violence. Hasebe also worked with a more macho action star, Jō Shishido, on Massacre Gun (Minagoroshi no kenjū, 1967), filmed in black and white and considered a companion piece to Seijun Suzuki’s contemporary Branded to Kill (Koroshi no rakuin, 1967).

In the early seventies, Hasebe realized three out of five entries in the Nikkatsu Stray Cat Rock (Nora neko rokku) series, starring Meiko Kaji as a gang girl; fans generally consider Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter (Nora neko rokku: Sekkusu hantā, 1970) to be the best. With its day-glo colors and stylized sets it was certainly visually striking, and its focus on Japanese concerns with racial purity—a gang leader sets out to clear a town of its mixed-race inhabitants—was intriguing. However, these virtues were overwhelmed by sadism, incoherence, and the limitations of the exploitation format. Hasebe was one of the few established Nikkatsu directors to remain at the studio after it switched to producing Roman Porno in the early seventies, apparently making some of the nastiest of this subgenre. Among these was Assault: Jack the Ripper (Bōkō: Kirisaki Jakku, 1976), a notorious film about a couple who become serial killers after being sexually aroused when they accidentally kill a hitchhiker.

In later years, Hasebe returned to mainstream production. Fossil Plain (Kaseki no kōya, 1982) was a big-budget action film; Dangerous Detectives (Abunai deka, 1987) was a slick but silly thriller about two cops with unorthodox methods; and Lesson (Ressun, 1994) was an uncharacteristically romantic story about a journalist who falls for an older widow. Alongside these occasional cinema features, Hasebe worked prolifically in television and on films made for straight-to-video release. Overall, the impressive style of his films has never sufficiently compensated for the shallowness and cruelty of their content.

1966 Ore ni sawaru to abunai ze / Black Tight Killers (lit. It’s Dangerous to Touch Me)

1967 Bakudan otoko to iwareru aitsu / The Singing Gunman (lit. The Guy Called the Bomb Man)

Minagoroshi no kenjū / Massacre Gun

1968 Shima wa moratta / Turf War / Territorial Dispute / Retaliation

1969 Yajū o kese / Savage Wolf Pack / Exterminate the Wild Beasts (lit.)

Arakure / Roughneck / Coarse Violence

Kōiki bōryoku: Ryūketsu no shima / Bloody Territories / District of Violence

1970 Sakariba jingi / Pleasure Resort Gambling Code / A Gangster’s Morals

Onna banchō: Nora neko rokku / Girl Boss: Stray Cat Rock

Ashita no Jō / Tomorrow’s Joe

Nora neko rokku: Sekkusu hantā / Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter

Nora neko rokku: Mashin animaru / Stray Cat Rock: Machine Animal

1971 Otoko no sekai / A Man’s World

Soshiki bōryoku: Ryūketsu no kōsō / Bloody Feud

1972 Sengoku rokku: Hayate no onnatachi / Sengoku Rock: Female Warriors / The Naked Seven

1973 Joshū sasori: 701-gō uramibushi / Female Convict Scorpion: Number 701’s Song of Hate

1974 Sukeban Deka: Dāti Marī / Girl Boss Detective: Dirty Mary

1976 Okasu! / Rape!

Bōkō: Kirisaki Jakku / Assault! Jack the Ripper

1977 Reipu 25-ji: Bōkan / Rape: 25 Hours of Sexual Assault

Maruhi hanemūn: Bōkō ressha / Secret Honeymoon: Assault Train

1978 Osou!! / Attack!!

Erochikkuna kankei / Erotic Liaisons

Yaru! / Rampage! / Outrage! /

Do It!

Kawajan hankōzoku / Leather Jacket Rebellious Tribe

1982 Kaseki no kōya / Fossil Plain / Petrified Wilderness

1987 Abunai deka / Dangerous Detectives

1994 Ressun / Lesson