Saito Koichi

[Aaron Gerow]

The Asahi reports this morning that the film director, Saito Koichi,  
passed away on November 28th or pneumonia. He was 80 years old.

Saito-kantoku was one of the more unique directors in Japanese film  
history who deserves more attention than he has gotten. First, after  
studying at Rikkyo and then the Tokyo College of Photography (now  
Tokyo Polytechnic University), he started out as a still  
photographer,  at Oizumu Eiga (one of the precursors of Toei) and then  
at Nikkatsu. He was one of the unsung figures who defined the Nikkatsu  
Action style: many of the cool stills you see of the Nikkatsu films  
that are finally getting released outside Japan were shot by him. He  
also did stills on films by directors such as Imai Tadashi, Imamura  
Shohei and Ichikawa Kon. He would be a central figure for anyone  
writing a history of Japanese still photography (a history which  
should be written some day).

Saito-kantoku has a quite cool, modern visual sense, so when he  
decided to direct his own film, gathering enough money to make  
Tsubayaki no Jo in 1967, the result was an urban, pop masterpiece that  
resembled more Richard Lester's Beatles than anything in Japanese  
film, albeit with more pathos. He and perhaps Obayashi Nobuhiko (in  
his 1960s experimental films) were arguably the first to really adapt  
that kind of commercial 1960s visual sense to Japanese film. Saito  
then utilized that sense in a series of "Group Sounds" films at  
Shochiku in the late 1960s, which are all quite interesting to watch,  
especially Chiisana sunakku.

Often focusing on rootless young people, his interest shifted in the  
early 1970s to those urban youth venturing to the countryside to  
escape the city or to find themselves. One could link him to a kind of  
"Discover Japan" ethos in the 1970s (and anyone researching Discover  
Japan should look at his work), but one that at that point is more  
critical, given how these young people rarely succeed in their quest  
for an original Japan. Films such as Yakusoku, Tabi no omosa, and  
Tsugaru jangarabushi were critically celebrated, with Tsugaru getting  
the number one spot in the KineJun poll.

I'm afraid his later films sometimes did fall into nostalgic  
representations of an original rural life, but it is his brilliant  
work from 1967 to the mid-1970s that strongly deserves a second look.  
He was big enough at the time that KineJun featured him in one its  
Sekai no eiga sakka books.

Saito-kantoku was one of the first Japanese directors I got to know  
personally. When I arrived in Japan in 1992, I was a regular attendee  
of the Asagaya Eigamura run by the critic Shirai Yoshio. One of the  
directors Shirai liked and often presented was Saito-kantoku, who came  
personally to talk about his films and drink with us afterwards. At  
that time, none of his Group Sounds films were available for rental,  
but it was the clout of Saito-kantoku and Shirai-san that got us  
prints of those. I think it was that activity that eventually  
convinced Shochiku to release some of those on video and helped build  
up the Group Sounds boom. Saito-kantoku was always an amiable and  
polite gentleman, who would spend hours talking with us youngsters  
until the wee hours of the morning.

He will be missed.

Aaron Gerow
KineJapan owner

Associate Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University

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