Kanai Katsu films on DVD

[Aaron Gerow]

We just enjoyed a pleasant and provocative visit from the independent  
filmmaker Kanai Katsu here at Yale as part of our East Asia in Motion  
symposium (thanks to the KineJapanners who were present).

We screened Mujin retto (The Desert Archipelago) and Good-Bye on film  
(the first in 35mm and the second in 16mm) with digital subtitles:  
the prints were in good visual condition and the grad students doing  
the subtitles were spot on. In the discussion afterwards, we got into  
Kanai's experience at the Daiei studios (where he worked with  
Kinugasa Teinosuke), his impetus for going independent, his  
connections with Nihon University film people like Adachi Masao and  
Jonouchi Motoharu, his relations with Oshima Nagisa and Ogawa  
Shinsuke, his inspirations from existentialism and Surrealism, and  
especially his depictions of zainichi Koreans and his experience of  
filming Good-Bye in Korea (it was the first postwar Japanese film to  
be shot in South Korea).

One good piece of news is that Kanai-san has put out a DVD-box set of  
his films WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES. It's a limited edition, numbered,  
and with Kanai's signature. More info on the set and on ordering can  
be found at:

http://www.hinocatv.ne.jp/~katsu/dvd-the%20world.html

There's a great trailer for a Kanai retro on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJoNpwsRb6M


Aaron Gerow
Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University
53 Wall Street, Room 316
PO Box 208363
New Haven, CT 06520-8363
USA
Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6764
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu
site: www.aarongerow.com