Japanese actor-directors

[Aaron Gerow]

Last night I attended a talk by the old Toei director Naito Makoto on the 
prewar Daito studio and he talked about another actor/director people 
might want to know about.

Hayafusa (sometimes Hayabusa) Hideto was aerial acrobat who first entered 
Nikkatsu and then Takarazuka Eiga before moving on to Daito in 1934.  He 
was their main action star, doing spectacular stunts in modern gendaigeki 
with plots little different from the old Hollywood serials.  Pretty early 
on, however, he started scripting his own films and later directed them, 
using either his acting name or Yashiro Takeshi as his directing name.  
He directed about half of the some 80 films in which he starred at Daito. 
 When Daito was amalgamated into Daiei, Hayafusa moved on to Man'ei where 
he directed three films.  He continued acting after the war, but only 
directed one more film (in which he did appear).

Hayafusa can be considered an exception to the studio division of labor I 
discussed earlier, but I would also like to think of him as reflecting a 
lingering hybridity in the mode of production in the 1930s that is 
represented by such companies as Daito, which was a second rate, 
low-budget studio with close ties to the yakuza.  It's mode of production 
was much less modern and rationalized compared to, say, Toho's, so it 
makes sense that it was to be one of the targets of industry 
consolidation in 1941, itself an effort to rationalize the industry.

Aaron Gerow
YNU