Giichi Nishihara

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Wikidata image , also known as , was a Japanese film director, screenwriter, producer and actor best known for his low-budget and sensationalistic pink films made for his Aoi Eiga studios in the 1960s and 1970s. He has been called both "Japan's sleaziest movie-maker," and "a cult favorite among devotees of extreme cinema."

Life and career

Early career

Born in 1929, Nishihara worked as a professional boxer during the early post-World War II years. His success in this capacity led to his entry to the film industry as an actor, playing the role of a fighter in director Kōzō Saeki's 1947 Daiei film, Town Of The Iron Fist or Street of Iron Fists (Tekken No Machi). Nishihara served as Saeki's assistant director in the 1949 film, . In the early years of his career he worked as an actor and freelance filmmaker for several studios besides Daiei, including Shochiku, Mainichi Television and NHK.

Pink film and Aoi Eiga Studios

The first Japanese film to contain nudity, director Satoru Kobayashi's controversial Flesh Market, was released in 1962. It was shut down by the police and censored before it could be re-released, but the film became a huge box-office success. Even with the limited distribution it received as an independent production, Flesh Market, which was made for 6-8 million yen, took in over 100 million yen. With the success of this movie, the pink film genre—known as eroductions at the time—had been born. In the pink-boom atmosphere of the mid-1960s, many small studios were set up to produce these cheap and profitable softcore pornographic theatrical films. One such studio was Aoi Eiga, founded by Nishihara to produce his own films. Some have claimed the company was a "front" for the Osaka yakuza.

1960s

Nishihara made his directorial debut with Highway of Passion (1965). In 1966, Tamaki Katori, star of Flesh Market, joined Aoi Eiga and quickly appeared in many films scripted and directed by Nishihara. To Aim at... (January 1967) was a crime drama, in which Katori is the only survivor after she battles with the three men with whom she has committed a major robbery. Weeping Affair (March 1967) was a melodrama about Katori's relationship with a middle-aged man and his daughter.

Indecent Relationship (May 1967) had Katori as a girl who is financially supporting her boyfriend by working at a hostess bar. When she finds out that the woman who owns the bar and her boyfriend are having an affair, she seeks revenge on them both. The Weissers judge this early work, "More back-alley junk from sleaze-meister Giichi Nishihara."

According to the Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films, the main difference between Seduction of the Flesh (July 1967) and Nishihara's other "cinematic excesses" is that Katori is raped not once, but twice within the film's 72-minute duration. The story had Katori suffering these assaults while her husband is away, and then committing suicide in shame.

Pink Telephone (August 1967) was an atypical venture into comedy for Nishihara and Tamaki. The story concerns a man whose goal is to become Japan's number-one drunk. Abnormal Reaction: Ecstasy (November 1967), was an erotic thriller in which Katori co-starred as the mistress of a man who has faked his death. When the "widow" discovers that her husband is not actually dead, she gets her revenge by arranging to have both her husband and Katori impaled on stakes while in bed. Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films calls this a "somewhat restrained early project" for the director, adding, "[t]he violence is fleeting. Even the sex scenes are stilted when compared to Nishihara's later efforts."

Ripped Virgin (1968) had Katori as a high school girl who discovers that the man who raped her is actually her boyfriend. The Weissers judge this film "surprisingly refined" considering that Nishihara is the director. Exploiting the exotic appeal of a white actresses, Nishihara co-starred Katori with two foreign actresses in Aoi Eiga's Staircase of Sex (1968).

1970s

Nishihara's main actress, Tamaki Katori, left Aoi Eiga studios in the later 1960s, and then retired in 1972. With her, Nishihara had produced countless films for the studio which were profitable, but were not notably successful. It was not until he teamed up with actress Yuri Izumi in the early 1970s, that he began directing box-office hits. According to some Japanese sources, Nishihara and Izumi are married.

In the later half of the decade Nishihara and Izumi began making films for the major pink film studio Shintōhō Eiga. Nishihara's films for this studio include such titles as Please Rape Me Once More (starring Izumi) and Grotesque Perverted Slaughter (both 1976). About the latter film, the Weissers, in their Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films report, "This is probably director Nishihara's best film, but that's like choosing from rat-bite fever, jungle rot, or tick-borne typhus. They're all pretty bad." Robert Firsching of Allmovie agrees with the Weisser's assessment, calling the film "Nishihara's most skillful film, as he concentrates on characterization and suspense far more here than in his usual sick rapefests."

His films of this period are noted for their "twisted plots delivered in an unnerving matter-of-fact style." A typical plot of one of Nishihara's "staggering sleaze-fests" of the 1970s can be found in Abnormal Passion Case: Razor (1977). The heroine of this film, Reiko, is worried about her father because he recently had a near-fatal heart attack while the two of them were making love. Out of concerns that he may have a stroke if their sexual relations continue, she goes to a lawyer for advice. The lawyer suggests that she get married so that her father will have to stop having sex with her. The lawyer then proceeds to rape Reiko. The rape is interrupted by a call from the lawyer's girlfriend. The lawyer then tells Reiko she can leave, as he doesn't need to rape her anymore—his girlfriend is coming over. Reiko persuades the lawyer to pretend to be her fiancée so that she can convince her father she's really going to be married. The ruse works only too well. The father believes her, and, in shock and grief, dies of a heart attack on the spot. Reiko then kills the lawyer with a butcher knife.

Nishihara retired from the film industry in 1985. In 2002 he published , his memoirs which recounted his eventful life and encounters with criminals. In September 2009, the 1960s careers of Nishihara and actress Tamaki Katori—working together and separately—were the subject of a retrospective at the Kobe Planet Film Archive. Summarizing Nishihara's career, Allmovie writes, "No one ever accused Nishihara of being the most subtle filmmaker in the world, but at least he manages to keep the tawdry proceedings lively."

Partial filmography

Title	Release date	Cast	Studio	Notes
Mad Passion Highway Template:Category handler Gekijō no Haiuee	August 1965	Mayumi Aoi Isao Matsui Setsuko Moriya	Aoi Eiga	66 min. B&W Nishihara's directorial debut(?)
To Aim At... Template:Category handler Nerau	January 21, 1967		Aoi Eiga
Weeping Affair Template:Category handler Nakinureta Joji	March 28, 1967		Aoi Eiga
Indecent Relationship Template:Category handler Midareta Kankei	May 9, 1967	Tamaki Katori Koji Satomi Setsu Shimizu	Aoi Eiga
Seduction of Flesh a.k.a. Temptation of the Flesh Template:Category handler Nikutai No Yūwaku	July 11, 1967	Tamaki Katori Chiyo Morizō Noriko Chizuki Masayoshi Nogami Yūichi Minato Joji Ohara	Aoi Eiga	72 min. Color
Pink Telephone Template:Category handler Momoiro Denwa	August 26, 1967		Aoi Eiga
Abnormal Reaction: Ecstasy Template:Category handler Ijo Na Hanno: Monzetsu	November 21, 1967	Tamaki Katori Mari Azusa Teruko Amano Yasushi Matsura	Aoi Eiga
Female Trap Template:Category handler Mesuwana	December 1967	Tamaki Katori Michi Nakahara Chiyo Morizō Mari Nagisa Jirō Kokubu	Aoi Eiga	66 min. Part color
Staircase of Sex Template:Category handler Sei no Kaidan	May 1968	Tamaki Katori Edie McNair Marilyn Weir	Aoi Eiga	71 min. Part color
Ripped Virgin Template:Category handler Hikisakareta Shojo	August 1968	Tamaki Katori Hiroshi Yajima	Aoi Eiga
Betrayal of Affairs Template:Category handler Uragiri no Irogoto	December 1968		Aoi Eiga
Sexy Angel Template:Category handler Oiroke Tenshi	February 1969	Tamaki Katori Kazuko Shirakawa Setsu Shimizu Kōhei Tsuzaki Jōji Ichimura Kemi Ishiboshi	Aoi Eiga	74 min. Part color
Ghost Story of Sex Template:Category handler Sei No Kaidan	1972	Maki Kirikawa Hiroshi Nishihara	Aoi Eiga
The Devil Dwells in a Woman's Valley Template:Category handler Onna no Tani ni Akuma ga Sumu	September 1972	Hirimi Naka Rina Takase Aki Uehara Yuri Izumi	Aoi Eiga	70 min. Part color Directed as Shirō Sekiya
Grotesque Perverted Slaughter aka Present-Day Bizarre Sex Crime Template:Category handler Gendai Ryoki Sei Hanzai	August 1976	Keiko Sugi Kiyoshi Nakayama Yuri Izumi	Aoi Eiga Shintōhō Eiga
Abnormal Passion Case: Razor Template:Category handler Ijojochi Jiken: Kamisori	1977	Yuri Izumi Jirō Kakubu	Aoi Eiga
Please Rape Me Once More Template:Category handler Mou Ichido Yaru	January 1979	Yuri Izumi Maki Kirikawa Eiji Togawa Hiroshi Nishihara	Shintōhō Eiga

Sources

• Template:Trim/ Giichi Nishihara at IMDbTemplate:EditAtWikidata
• (Nishihara's autobiography)