Kiyoshi Nishimura question - Hairpin Circus / Red Target

Mon Feb 27 10:51:48 EST 2012

Thanks Don, very interesting information, and I'm really intrigued to see more of this director I've not even heard of before. I'll definitely hunt down some more!bestJasper

My new book, The Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema, is out now from Scarecrow Press.
Jasper Sharp: Writer & Film Curator Homepage
http://jaspersharp.com/

Midnight Eye: The Latest and Best in Japanese Cinema
http://www.midnighteye.com

Zipangu Fest: Japanarchy in the UK
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Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2012 22:50:34 +0900
From: ryuganji at gmail.com
To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: Kiyoshi Nishimura question - Hairpin Circus / Red Target

Jasper. 

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you on this one.

Tokyo Eiga was established in 1952 as a kind of "feeder" company for Toho. It operated the company's studio in Setagaya (formerly Shinagawa), and produced mainly comedy films such as the Ekimae series. It was dissolved in 1983 in a corporate reshuffle and became Tokyo Eiga Shinsha, making TV movies until it was swallowed in a 2004 merger with Toho. 

What little of Nishimura's work I've seen makes me want to see more, especially the dodgy-looking Matsuda Seiko movie he shot partly in New Zealand. For me "Hairpin Circus" wasn't great apart from the beautifully trippy end sequence, as it's bogged down by an awfully wooden lead performance by real-life race driver Misaki Kiyoshi. His "The Creature Called Man" is fantastic though, with Kayama Yuzo and Tamiya Jiro playing dapper dueling snipers. It even has a sequence shot on location at Yasukuni Shrine (!), and a beautifully choreographed slow-motion finale shot in a hangar at the old Chofu airfield, which just happened to have an actual Zero fighter leftover from WWII lying around inside (which the filmmakers used to great effect).  

By the way, I wrote the Wikipedia entry, so apologies for any errors and generally crap writing.

Regards,

Don Brown

2012/2/14 Jasper Sharp <jasper_sharp at hotmail.com>

Thank you both for these insights. Very interesting Don that you mention it was at the cheaper end of Toho's production roster, although I can imagine it was fairly modestly budgeted compared with Okamoto Kihachi's war epics of the era, or Gosha Hideo's Panavision jidai-geki. At any rate, the film looks wonderful, and I'll have to see it sometime. I'm amazed I've never come across the name of Nishimura before, especially as he is important enough to warrant his own English-language wikipedia entry, which mentions his "arrest in 1987 for secretly using a video camera in a public bathhouse for women".

I'm also really interested though in the relationship between Tokyo Eiga and Toho - you mention they're a subsidiary Don, any further information?
Thanks again!jasper

My new book, The Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema, is out now from Scarecrow Press.

Jasper Sharp: Writer & Film Curator Homepage
http://jaspersharp.com/

Midnight Eye: The Latest and Best in Japanese Cinema
http://www.midnighteye.com

Zipangu Fest: Japanarchy in the UK
http://zipangufest.com/

Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 09:28:21 +0900
From: ryuganji at gmail.com

To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: Kiyoshi Nishimura question - Hairpin Circus / Red Target

Hi Jasper,

The liner notes for the Hairpin Circus DVD mention that the Macao Grand Prix scenes were "essential for the completion of the film" (perhaps it was featured in Itsuki Hiroyuki's serialized novella on which the film was based?). Toho were slow to permit the Macao shoot, so with the race impending, subsidiary Tokyo Eiga put up provisional funds to make it possible. The producers eventually received permission from Toho after the scenes were shot. It was made for 45 million yen, which was the lowest bracket for a Toho film at the time.

Don Brown

2012/2/14 Jasper Sharp <jasper_sharp at hotmail.com>

Does anyone know anything about the director Kiyoshi Nishimura, more specifically, his two films Red
Target (Bara
no hyoteki) and Highway
Circuit a.k.a. Hairpin Circus (Heapin saakasu), both from 1972. It seems to me, flicking through the Unijapan catalogues of that year, that they were both shot in Hong Kong/Macao, but I'm wandering if this was actually the case.

The reason I ask is that the Unijapan catalogue mentions both were shot in Eastman Color, but from this period, almost all of Toho's films were shot in Fujicolor (except those such as Shinoda’s
The Scandalous Adventures
of Buraiken that were shot in Panavision) - so there must be a reason they were shot in Eastmancolor, and if they were shot on location in Hong Kong (Shaw Brothers used Eastman Color, for example), this this would sort of make sense. Or maybe I'm barking up a completely nonsensical tree here...

My new book, The Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema, is out now from Scarecrow Press.

Jasper Sharp: Writer & Film Curator Homepage
http://jaspersharp.com/

Midnight Eye: The Latest and Best in Japanese Cinema
http://www.midnighteye.com

Zipangu Fest: Japanarchy in the UK
http://zipangufest.com/

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