Hong Kong 2012 Diary: Tribute - The Irreverent Genre-Buster: Kurahara Koreyoshi

Kurahara Koreyoshi (1927-2002). If translated into a musical score, the fantastically diverse career of Kurahara Koreyoshi might sound like one of the frenzied jazz solos that play through his films. From noir crime dramas to New Wave beatnik sagas to popular blockbusters about animals and Antarctica, Kurahara’s cinema can be called anything but boring.

Born in Sarawak (now Borneo) in 1927, Kurahara returned to Japan as a child and later witnessed the 1945 atomic bombing at Hiroshima while training as a young sailor nearby. Later he became one of the “Nikkatsu Trio” (along with Nakahira Ko and Imamura Shohei), directing some of the studio’s biggest hits and conducting his first excursions into the New Wave (his depictions of youth angst in The Warped Ones and Black Sun are among the most powerful from that era). Ever restless, Kurahara went on to direct literary adaptations, star-studded adventures in exotic locales like East Africa and Paris, nature documentaries, and 1983’s Antarctica, a record-breaking box office hit. His earliest works, however, best showcase Kurahara’s giddy yet fatalistic vision, set to the fractured music of modernity.

Films include The Third Dead Angle; Intimidation; The Warped Ones; Glass-Hearted Johnny; Black Sun; and Thirst for Love.

(from the site)