Tom Mes

Jasper Sharp

Thanks to directors such as Kitano, Miike and Miyazaki, Japanese cinema has recently undergone something of a resurgence. This title profiles the work of these established film-makers, as well as looking at the creations of new, up-and-coming directors.

The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film

This book explores the phenomenon of V-Cinema, founded in Japan in 1989 as a distribution system for direct-to-video movies which film companies began making having failed to recoup their investment in big budget films. It examines how studios and directors worked quickly to capitalize on niche markets or upcoming and current trends, and how as a result this period of history in Japanese cinema was an exceptionally diverse and vibrant film scene. It highlights how, although the V-Cinema industry declined from around 1995, the explosion in quantity and variety of such movies established and cemented many specific genres of Japanese film. Importantly the book argues that film scholars who have long looked down on video as a substandard medium without scholarly interest have been wrong to do so, and that V-Cinema challenges accepted notions of cultural value, providing insight into the formation of cinematic canons and inviting us to rethink what is meant by "Japanese cinema".

Japanese Film and the Challenge of Video

Re-Agitator. collects more than ten years' worth of Tom Mes' writing on respected Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike. From dusty film sets in Japan to festival intrigue on the Riviera, and from the straight-to-video ghetto to the stage, Mes covers the full scope of this unclassifiable filmmaker's life and work - with the kind of detail and intimacy that only an insider can provide. This luxurious coffee-table hardback also contains previously unpublished material and explores the background and development of the Japanese film industry over the past 20 years.

A Decade of Writing on Takashi Miike

Re-agitator

"Unleashed with the now legendary black and white cyberpunk masterpiece Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Shinya Tsukamoto is one of Japan's leading filmmakers. With visual assaults like Tetsuo II: The Body Hammer, Tokyo Fist and Bullet Ballet he gained a worldwide following and paved the way for the international breakthrough of Japanese cinema. Despite his fame he remains fiercely independent, financing, writing, shooting, directing and often also starring in his own films. Shinya Tsukamoto is literally uncompromising." "Fully authorised by the director and featuring first hand accounts from many of his close collaborators, Iron Man: The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto is a fascinating and in-depth look at the life and work of an intense, groundbreaking filmmaker who counts Quentin Tarantino, Tsui Hark, novelist William Gibson and The Matrix directors The Wachowski Brothers among his most loyal fans. Illustrated with hundreds of stills, behind-the-scenes pictures and rare photographs from Tsukamoto's private collection. Plus a complete filmography with cast and crew credits, and detailed information on DVD availability."--BOOK JACKET.

The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto

Iron Man

Shinya Tsukamoto has become one of the most widely praised filmmakers in Japan today. Edgy, intense and overwhelming, Tsukamoto's films are nightmarish visions of a world in which man's greatest enemy is his own environment of cold concrete and twisted technology. Illustrated with hundreds of stills, behind-the-scenes pictures and rare photographs from the director's own collection, Iron Man reveals the mind, methods and madness of Japan's most unique and influential filmmaker.

"In this volume, expert Tom Mes takes us through the extraordinary career of this Japanese actess, whose commanding screen presence and piercing gaze defined an entire age of Japanese cinema from the 1960s onwards. From her early years in the wildly popular films of the Nikkatsu studio to career-defining roles in Lady Snowblood and Female Prisoner Scorpion, Tom als explores Kaji's many collaborations with master film-makers such as Kinji Fukasaku and Kon Ichikawa and delves into her twilight reign on the television screens of Japan, as well as spolighting Meiko Kaji the singer. Unchained Melody profiles her collaborating directors and looks at the varied cinematic tastes of Japanese film audiences over a period of several decades, providing an intriguing snapshot not only iinto Meiko Kaji's career and the film industry of the time, but also of Japanese culture itself"--Page 4 of cover.

The Films of Meiko Kaji

Unchained Melody

Fully revised and updated edition of the bestselling guide to Japan's most prolific and successful film director Takashi Miike. This third pressing ofAgitator features a new and expanded 16-page colour section, completely updated DVD information and several brand new reviews of Miike films that were unavailable for review at the time of the book's initial production. Takashi Miike's popularity continues to grow, and there is no sign of any slow-down of interest in this book, which has been described as an essential purchase'.'

Tom Mes

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