Sugawa Eizo

[Ono Seiko and Aaron Gerow]

The papers reported that the film director Sugawa Eizo died of heart 
failure on the 2nd at the age of 68.

Probably not a name many are familiar with, although his 1959 _Yaju 
shisubeshi_ is considered one of the important precursors of the Japanese 
New Wave.  Other well received works include _Kemonomichi_ (1965) and 
_Hotarugawa_ (1986), but I will remember him as one of the few Japanese 
filmmakers, apart from Makino Masahiro, with a genuine interest in 
musicals.  His 1964 _Kimi mo shusse ga dekiru_ is, along with Makino's 
_Oshidori utagassen_, one of the two best Japanese musicals of all time 
and, I would argue, one of the most important world musicals.  His other 
musicals include _Nihonjin no heso_ (1977).

_Kimi mo shusse ga dekiru_, with grand musical numbers like "Amerika de 
wa" and "Kimi mo shusse ga dekiru" and great performances by Frankie 
Sakai, Yukimura Izumi, and Masuda Kiton, was mostly an ignored film (it 
wasn't mentioned in his obit, and is not featured in the KineJun 
director's dictionary entry on him) until Oi Musashinokan started showing 
it.  The critic Shirai Yoshio also promoted it.  Catch it if you can!

Aaron Gerow
Yokohama National University
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