ITAMI JUZO VERSUS BEAT TAKESHI

The Japanese film industry has always been strong. The late 1980s saw the emergence of Itami Juzo, a major talent in a film industry that boasted the likes of Ozu and Kurosawa Akira, Oshima Nagisa and Imamura Shohei, Ichikawa Kon and  Mizoguchi Ken, (not to forget Teshigahara Hiroshi). It was an industry that had produced classics like Rashomon, Kwaidan, Tokyo Story, Woman of the Dunes and Pigs and Battleships. Then, of course, there are the anime (animated films), but that is another story.  The satirical films of Itami Juzo made lots of people laugh but they also took a savage swipe at the excesses of Japanese society, particularly during the 'bubble economy' period of the 1980s..  After The Funeral (1984) and then Tampopo, Itami made A Taxing Woman in 1988 starring his wife Miyamoto Nobuko. This was a major success. With success came more scrutiny, however, and given the nature of some of the targets of his satire, it was perhaps no surprise when he was attacked by the yakuza and hospitalised after making Minbo no Onna, an anti-yakuza film in 1992.

Whilst Itami Juzo blazed the self-righteous trail of the independent film-maker, a challenger appeared in the opposite corner from an unlikely source. Whilst Itami Juzo targeted the excesses of the yakuza and religious cults, Beat Takeshi's comic, tough guy films, celebrated the dignity of the yakuza with his back to the wall, a long established tradition in Japanese film (see the films of Suzuki Seijun). Kitano Takeshi restored their honour. At the time, however, many Japanese would have found Kitano Takeshi's emergence as a serious film maker hard to accept after his years of making lowbrow comedy as Beat Takeshi on Japanese television. These were madcap television programs aimed at the lowest common denominator. To emerge as a serious film maker working with respected professionals like the film score writer Hisaisha Joe was an unlikely achievement, especially when it culminated in the making of Hanabi in 1997, which received the Golden Lion award at the Venice film festival. That put him up there with the likes of Kurosawa and Mizoguchi.

This was great news for Kitano Takeshi and the Japanese film industry but a humiliation for Itami Juzo. This was the award that Kurosawa, his film Rashomon and the postwar Japanese film industry on the map. Itami Juzo had been eclipsed by a man who glorified the yakuza and had made a career out of low brow game shows on Japanese television. Subsequently, after  a murky sex scandal, Itami Juzo allegedly committed suicide by jumping off a Tokyo building in 1997. There was, however, rumours of yakuza involvement in his death due to talk about Itami planning to make a second anti-yakuza film. One of his last acts was to laud his wife, Miyamoto Nobuko, as one of Japan's greatest actresses.