Golden Week ends with sad news

[Stephen CREMIN]

Thanks Roland.

I heard that Xie Fei's SARS infection was a false alarm in the Chinese 
press.  He had similar symptoms, but they weren't SARS related.

SC


On Sunday, May 4, 2003, at 01:04 Europe/London, Roland Domenig wrote:

> This years Golden Week ends with a series of sad news.
> On Labour Day the set designer Shindo Seigo passed away at the age of 
> 90.
> Shindo joined the Nikkatsu studios in 1935 and worked with directors 
> such as
> Toyoda Shiro, Abe Yutaka, Uchida Tomu and Shima Koji. After the war he
> joined Shinto and worked with Inagaki Hiroshi, Ichikawa Kon and other
> directors. In 1956 he switched to Toei where he often worked with 
> Makino
> Masahiro and Imai Tadashi amongst others.
> Also on May 1 the director Yoshida Kenji died from pneumonia at the 
> age of
> 71. Yoshida began his career as assistant director for Nikkatsu and 
> made his
> debut with WATAKUSHI WA NAKANAI in 1966. When Nikkatsu changed its
> production-line to Roman Porno he left the studio and continued as
> independent director. In 1974 he co-directed MOSUKUWA WAGA AI, a
> co-production with the Mosfilm studio and Soviet director Alexander 
> Mitta, a
> year later he directed MEGURIAI for the production company ATG. In the 
> 80s
> and 90s Yoshida mainly worked for TV.
> The saddest news is the tragic death of former producer Maeda 
> Katsuhiro, who
> was burned to death in a fire on May 2. Maeda was chief producer of the
> production company Gentosha which he and director Higashi Yoichi
> established. He produced many of Higashi's films amongst them SAADO, 
> SHIKI
> MINAKO and MANON. Maeda also produced films by Kuroki Kazuki and 
> Tsuchimoto
> Noriaki, and directed himself documentaries about the victims of 
> pollution
> and disabled people. Several years ago he had a cerebral infarcation 
> and
> became himself disabled. It seems that he couldn't escape by his own 
> when a
> fire started in his apartment.
> During the Udine Far East Film Festival, that this year had to struggle
> against pressures from the local health authorities and hostilities of
> certain groups because of the SARS problem, we learned that Xie Fei, 
> the
> acclaimed director of BLACK SNOW and other films, was infected by SARS 
> and
> is now in intensive care. His condition seems to be very serious. I 
> hope he
> recovers soon.
>
> Roland Domenig
> Institute of East Asian Studies
> Vienna University
>
>
>