some thought about

[wlt4@mindspring.com]

>One more thing : can anyone tell me if these two books are valuable :
>Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia : The Sex Films
>by Thomas Weisser, Yuko Mihara Weisser, Naomi Tani
>Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: Horror Fantasy and SciFi Films
>by Thomas Weisser, Yuko Mihara Weisser, Oliver Stone

Within limits.  They're both pretty extensive and cover material not easily available in English.  However, all of Weisser's books (including his spaghetti Western and Hong Kong ones) are notoriously error-ridden.  These range from an inordinate number of typos to major mis-statements of plot and incorrect actor identifications.  I'm most familiar with Hong Kong films so the errors there stand out more (& apparently Weisser has admitted to having not seen a significant number of the films) so perhaps since his co-author (& wife) is Japanese there are less in these books.  Weisser runs the gray market (euphemism for "bootleg") company Video Search of Miami and has alienated large numbers of collectors and writers in this area (the reasons I've heard are all second-hand so I won't pass them along).