Japanese pop band movies

[Roland Domenig]

In the late 1960s the so-called Group Sound-boom led to several series with
popular pop-groups like The Tigers, The Drifters, The Spiders or The
Tempters. 
Nikkatsu released 4 films with The Spiders: "Za supaidasu no gogo mukomizu
sakusen" (Saito Buichi, 1967), "Za supaidasu no daishingeki" (Nakahira Ko,
1968), "Za supaidasu no daisodo" (Morinaga Kenjiro, 1968), "Za supaidasu no
barito chindochu" (Nishikawa Katsumi, 1968)), and Toho 3 films with The
Tigers: "Za taigasu - Sekai wa bokura o matteiru" (Wada Yoshinori, 1968),
"Za taigasu - Hanayaka naru shotai" (Yamamoto Kunihiko, 1968), "Za taigasu -
Hai! Rondon!" (Iwauchi Kazuki, 1969). The Drifters had two series: the 5
film "Dorifutazu desu yo!" series of Toho ("Dorifutazu desu yo! Zenshin
zenshin mata zenshin" (Wada Yoshinori, 1967), "Dorifutazu desu yo! Boken
boken mata boken" (Wada Yoshinori, 1968), "Dorifutazu desu yo! Totte totte
torimakure" (Watanabe Yusuke, 1968), etc.) and the 16 films of the "Zenin
shugo!!" series released by Shochiku as double feature for its "Otoko wa
tsurai"-series ("Nani wa nakutomo zenin shugo" (Watanabe Yusuke, 1967),  "Za
dorifutazu no gokuraku wa doko da" (Watanabe Yusuke, 1974), "Za dorifutazu
no kamo da!! Goyo da!!" (Segawa Masaharu, 1974), etc.).
The Tempters made only one film: "Za tenputazu - namida no ato ni hohoemi o"
(Uchikawa Seiichiro, 1969).

Though this boom was over after a few years, in the 1970s there were still
some films about rock-groups, like Tatsumura Jin's "Kyaroru" (1974) about
the band Carol.

>From the late 1970s on several films were produced as vehicle for popular
singers and bands like "Pink Lady to haruyasumi" (Takizawa Masaharu, 1979),
"Highteen Boogie" (Masuda Toshio, 1982), "Onyanko za movie" (Harada Masato,
1986) or "Checkers in Tan Tan tanuki" (Kawashima Toru, 1985), but not all of
these films were necessarily about the groups or singers themselves.


Roland Domenig
Institute of East Asian Studies
Vienna University


> Since I'm currently working on a review of Takashi Miike's ANDROMEDIA for
> Midnight Eye, I was wondering if there are any other Japanese films made
> around popular bands, preferably predating Andromedia (1998).
> 
> I know a lot of Japanese actors are ex-musicians, from Mickey Curtis to
> Masahiro Motoki, but does anyone know of films, aside from Andromedia
> specifically made about popular bands, in the vein of A Hard Day's Night (or
> Spice World, if you will)?
> 
> Tom
> Midnight Eye
> http://www.midnighteye.com
> 
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