<html>
<head>
<style><!--
.hmmessage P
{
margin:0px;
padding:0px
}
body.hmmessage
{
font-size: 10pt;
font-family:Tahoma
}
--></style>
</head>
<body class='hmmessage'>
Some terrible news
just came in, but according to news reports from Japan, the director
Toshiharu Ikeda has been found dead, believed to have committed
suicide by drowning. The main source I have for this at present can
be found in Japanese here
[<a href="http://ameblo.jp/m-ganmo/entry-10779711712.html">http://ameblo.jp/m-ganmo/entry-10779711712.html</a>]
and here
[http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/osaka/gossip/cinema/news/20110126-OHO1T00074.htm]Ikeda is known in
the the West for Japan’s first splatter movie <i>Evil Dead Trap</i>
(1988), a well-made but ultimately derivative film written by his
regular collaborator from the 1980s, Takashi Ishii, and heavily
influenced by Sam Raimi’s <i>Evil Dead</i> and the works of
Cronenburg and Argento. He began his
career at Nikkatsu, making Roman Porno films such as <i>Sukeman
Mafia: Lynching</i> (1980), <i>One Summer’s Experience: Blue Coral
Reef</i> (1981) and <i>Angel Guts: Red Porno</i> (1981). The latter,
the fourth film in the <i>Angel Guts </i>series based on the adult
manga series by Takashi Ishii, was his last for the studio, and he
left to go freelance, with his next film, <i>Mermaid Legend</i>
(1984) a co-production between the Director’s Company and Art
Theatre Guild – incidentally, a number of Japanese authorities have
described this as his best, although I personally have never seen
it. His output following <i>Evil Dead Trap </i>however was fairly
negligible, it has to be said, mainly work in the field of erotic and action V-Cinema.
His final film I saw, <i>The Man Behind the Scissors</i>,
played at the 2004 Tokyo International Film Festival, marking a
return to 35 feature film-making. I covered it for Midnight Eye back
then, and remember quite liking it until it started losing momentum
and falling apart towards the end, as I wrote at the time
(<a href="http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/round-up_009.shtml#the-man-behind-the-scissors">http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/round-up_009.shtml#the-man-behind-the-scissors</a>).
<br><br>I've written more on my blog about my reminiscences of when I interviewed him for the Arts Magic release of Angel Guts: Red Porno back in 2004: http://jaspersharp.com/blog/news/2011/01/toshiharu-ikeda/<br><br><br><br>Jasper Sharp: Writer & Film Curator Homepage<br>http://jaspersharp.com/<br><br>Midnight Eye: The Latest and Best in Japanese Cinema<br>http://www.midnighteye.com<br><br>Zipangu Fest: Japanarchy in the UK<br>http://zipangufest.com/<br><br><br> </body>
</html>