More Masumura

[Jasper Sharp]

Thanks for all the information everyone. Not for the first time, I find 
myself wishing I lived in Paris.
I assume that the ICA will be screening the same films as the Parisian 
retrospective - I'd love to catch these all on the big screen - especially 
MOJU.
Beautiful Ayako Wakao seems to have appeared in the majority of Masumura's 
film, including his '63 lesbian love triangle MANJI, which I think received 
an original release in France under the title SWASTIKA. Correct me if I'm 
wrong, but isn't the Buddhist manji symbol a mirror image of a swastika?
And it completely slipped my mind in the original posting, but I have 
actually also seen RAZOR 2: THE SNARE aka HANZO THE BLADE, a film which 
looks rather out of place in Masumura's otherwise distinguished oeuvre, 
being a pinku chambara featuring Lone Wolf/Kozure Okami producer Shintaro 
Katsu as a law enforced that interrogates his female prisoners using a 
finely honed penis. Outrageous stuff indeed.
I am particularly interested in finding out about Masumura's final film 
though, DOUBLE SUICIDE AT SONEZAKI featuring the divine Meiko Kaji. Has 
anyone seen this? And if so, what is it about and what is it like?

That Seijun Suzuki website was to accompany the recent STYLE TO KILL 
retrospective in Tokyo I believe. I very luckily got my hands on the 
accompanying book - just on Tuesday I was showing a couple of Japanese 
friends the trailers for the original Nikkatsu releases that came on the DVD 
which came included with it, and was surprised to find out that they'd never 
even heard of Seijun Suzuki, though all of them seemed very interested (this 
might have been more to do with Mari Annu than Seijun Suzuki though...)

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