Seijun Suzuki

Seijun Suzuki

Born: May 24, 1923
Died: February 13, 2017
in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, Japan
Seijun Suzuki born Seitaro Suzuki (24 May 1923 – 13 February 2017) was a Japanese filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter. His films are renowned by film enthusiasts worldwide for their jarring visual style, irreverent humour, nihilistic cool and entertainment-over-logic sensibility. He made 40 predominately B-movies for the Nikkatsu Company between 1956 and 1967, working most prolifically in the yakuza genre. His increasingly surreal style began to draw the ire of the studio in 1963 and culminated in his ultimate dismissal for what is now regarded his magnum opus, Branded to Kill (1967), starring notable collaborator Joe Shishido. Suzuki successfully sued the studio for wrongful dismissal, but he was blacklisted for 10 years after that. As an independent filmmaker, he won critical acclaim and a Japanese Academy Award for his Taishō Trilogy, Zigeunerweisen (1980), Kagero-za (1981) and Yumeji (1991).

His films remained widely unknown outside of Japan until a series of theatrical retrospectives beginning in the mid 1980s, home video releases of key films such as Branded to Kill and Tokyo Drifter in the late 1990s and tributes by such acclaimed filmmakers as Jim Jarmusch, Takeshi Kitano, Wong Kar-wai and Quentin Tarantino signaled his international discovery. Suzuki has continued making films, albeit sporadically. In Japan, he is more commonly recognized as an actor for his numerous roles in Japanese films and television.

He passed away on February 13th, 2017.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Seijun Suzuki, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Movies for Seijun Suzuki...

SOAR: I Wish You Were Here
Title: SOAR: I Wish You Were Here
Released: January 31, 2015
Type: Movie
A tragic love story set in a mountain village in the Showa era, waiting for a fiancé who died in the war, but it is more than that. It breaks through the existing concept of a film with a beginning, middle, and end, and like Fellini or Godard... Hara Masato's cosmic film philosophy on the theme of "human history and media" unfolds like a symphony.
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Milocrorze: A Love Story
Title: Milocrorze: A Love Story
Character: Gazen
Released: February 18, 2011
Type: Movie
Three tales of love told through wildly intoxicating, colorful stories. When platinum redhead Ovreneli Vreneligare was just a little boy, he fell in love in the park. Sharing a juice box with the stunningly gorgeous Milocrorze, he took her home to his cat, Verandola Gorgonzola, and made her his girlfriend until the fickle beauty abandoned him, and he covered the hole in his heart with a pot lid he found lying on the ground. This is only the beginning of his story but it’s not the end of his heartbreak. MILOCRORZE: A LOVE STORY is a candy-flavored anthology of hopeless l’amour, and it has many victims.
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Dreaming Awake
Title: Dreaming Awake
Released: October 18, 2008
Type: Movie
Recently appointed dean at a film school, Kimuro Hajime develops a special concern for one of his students, Daisuke. The brash, headstrong young man is fixated on with the Second World War. He feels a sense of frustration at the irrational sacrifice of young people's lives during the war six decades earlier. Daisuke finds that he can vent his frustrations to Kimuro, who experienced the war firsthand. Kimuro's wife, Emiko, is also troubled by memories of the war. She lost a loved one in the war and has never gotten over it. And Kimuro himself also has something from the past that he has yet to face. He believes that the burden of his unresolved past will eventually be the death of him. When Daisuke's neurosis causes him to quit school, life changes for all three of them.
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Matouqin Nocturne
Title: Matouqin Nocturne
Released: July 21, 2007
Type: Movie
A baby, John, who was abandoned in the church with a horse-headed koto on his side. His grandfather was once a Morin Khuur player and died in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. The brilliantly colored images have an avant-garde charm while hiding the sadness of the war, and will grab the viewer's heart.
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Boy
Title: Boy
Character: Ryuun Naito
Released: April 22, 2007
Type: Movie
Jun, a 16-year-old teen, refuses to stand while the national anthem is being played at his graduation ceremony. This event will totally change his life, as he involuntarily becomes the new hero of a rebel anti-system youth. Singer Muy's pop music and his friend, Nozomi, with whom he shares his sadness and hatred for the society that surrounds them, help him bear his terrible loneliness.
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What's a Director?
Title: What's a Director?
Released: November 4, 2006
Type: Movie
Works commemorating the 70th anniversary of the founding of Japan mapping Supervision Association
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From the Ruins: Making 'Gate of Flesh'
Title: From the Ruins: Making 'Gate of Flesh'
Released: July 26, 2005
Type: Movie
Made for in 2005, this video interview features director Seijun Suzuki and production designer Takeo Kimura. These longtime collaborators discuss the making of GATE OF FLESH.
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The Wings of Hakenkreuz
Title: The Wings of Hakenkreuz
Released: July 24, 2004
Type: Movie
When a man who as a student wanted to burn down his school meets a man years later, his new friend falls in love with the former female class-mate who herself is in love with the would-be arsonist.
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Blessing Bell
Title: Blessing Bell
Character: Old Man's Ghost
Released: December 8, 2002
Type: Movie
Existential study on a misplaced workers and ex-prisoner who moves through the city and his influence on other characters' lives.
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Seijun Suzuki: kabuki & yakuzas
Title: Seijun Suzuki: kabuki & yakuzas
Character: Self - Filmmaker & Screenwriter
Released: January 10, 2002
Type: Movie
Film director and screenwriter Seijun Suzuki (1923-2017), who in the sixties was the great innovator of Japanese cinema; and his collaborator, art director and screenwriter Takeo Kimura (1918-2010), recall how they made their great masterpieces about the Yakuza underworld for the Nikkatsu film company.
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The Moon
Title: The Moon
Released: July 8, 2000
Type: Movie
A humanity drama set in Asakusa. Natsumi, a third-year high school student, moved to Tokyo when his grandmother died. Haruka, the flower-shaped stripper who is the mother, cannot hide the dreadfulness from the sudden appearance of her daughter. Living together is always addicted, Natsumi refuses her mother. On the other hand, Haruka is faced with a lover's debt problem.
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Oshimai no hi
Title: Oshimai no hi
Released: January 15, 2000
Type: Movie
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Embalming
Title: Embalming
Released: July 30, 1999
Type: Movie
Young female embalmer Miyako is called in to restore the body of a young man who has committed suicide, before the funeral. While performing the embalming process she finds herself pricks by a needle buried deep in the boy’s flesh where it should not be. During the night the head is removed from the body and stolen, Miyako begins a desperate search for it so she can finish her work. Miyako search finds her encountering organ harvesting, religious cults, incest, psychopathic schizophrenics as well as some very dark secrets from here own past.
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Let's Get Happy
Title: Let's Get Happy
Released: December 9, 1998
Type: Movie
A comedy about the uproar in a yakuza office, before the dissolution ceremony the next day. The day before the dissolution of the Yamamuro group, it is reported that the leader of the hostile organization was assassinated by someone.
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Sleepless Town
Title: Sleepless Town
Character: Ye Xiaodan
Released: June 27, 1998
Type: Movie
Kenichi is a half-Japanese, half-Chinese man of the underworld. You can sell him anything except children's organs. His domain is in Kabukicho, a gangland controlled by various Shanghai gangs intent on taking control. His former partner-in-crime, Fu-Chun, is rumored to have returned to Kabukicho, having fled years earlier after killing the number two of gangland boss, Yuan. Yuan wants to get even and attempts to do so by using Kenichi.
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The Story of PuPu
Title: The Story of PuPu
Character: Old Man
Released: April 4, 1998
Type: Movie
Fu and Suzu are two pretty anarchist girls who decide to take to the road. They set off on a journey to visit the tomb of a small pig by name Pupu. On the way, they meet Suzu's ex-lover, a gay couple, and a golf player; always getting in trouble. But whenever trouble comes, 'Trunk Man' the hero appears to save them.
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Ki no ue no sogyo
Title: Ki no ue no sogyo
Released: March 29, 1997
Type: Movie
A story about the friendship of the sons of two political rivals.
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Yurika-chan
Title: Yurika-chan
Character: Grandpa
Released: January 1, 1997
Type: Movie
An exciting 'psychic movie' starring Kanako Enomoto, adapted from the manga series by Yukio Tamai. Police detectives searching for clues related to a serial murder case seek out help from high schooler Yurika, who possesses latent split personality psychic abilities. The mystery deepens once Yurika is brought face-to-face with the crime scenes.
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Black Jack 2: Pinoko I Love You
Title: Black Jack 2: Pinoko I Love You
Released: May 25, 1996
Type: Movie
A difficult request brought to the unlicensed genius surgeon Black Jack. It was supposed to be born as twins, but it was an operation to separate what had been taken into another body. The second in a series depicting the episode of the birth of Pinoko.
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Sure Death 6
Title: Sure Death 6
Released: May 25, 1996
Type: Movie
When an artist dies, the official cause of death is judged to be a stroke, but his daughter suspects foul play. She recruits the services of an assassin, who by chance encounters an old friend...
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Cold Fever
Title: Cold Fever
Character: Hirata's Grandfather
Released: February 10, 1995
Type: Movie
A Japanese businessman travels to Iceland and has a series of misadventures while venturing to a remote area to perform a traditional burial ritual where his parents died several years back.
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Discontinuous Bombing Incident
Title: Discontinuous Bombing Incident
Released: May 13, 1991
Type: Movie
What is the clue that connects the police dormitory bombing case & Keihin canal murder case with the corporate bombing case 17 years ago? Detective Tamori chases a mystery!
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Title: Tales of the Bizarre
Released: April 19, 1990
Type: TV
Inspired by American TV movies like "Hitchcock Theater" and "The Twilight Zone," the show features multiple works with Tamori as the storyteller and actors as the main characters. While horror and supernatural themes are predominant, a variety of genres like comedy and drama are also produced. Most episodes, however, have a bad ending.
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Title: Bishojo Kamen Poitrine
Character: Kami-sama
Released: January 7, 1990
Type: TV
The eleventh entry in the Toei Fushigi Comedy Series. Yuko Murikami stops by a shrine to pray for the new school year. Yuko accidentally breaks the bell and drops it on top of a turtle's head. Because she is the only person that stopped by the shrine in a long time, he grants her the power to become a superheroine, based on another ancient deity. It is her job to protect her neighborhood from the threats it faces. By yelling "Cosmo Magic! Métamorphose!!", she transforms into the Masked Beaty Poitrine!
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Virgin Road
Title: Virgin Road
Released: July 21, 1989
Type: Movie
Based on the comic book by Tatsuo Kanai
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Shiro and Marilyn
Title: Shiro and Marilyn
Character: Vet
Released: July 16, 1988
Type: Movie
Based on a true story. Shiro, a dog who lives in an inn on Akajima in Okinawa, swims to the opposite shore on Zamami to see his love, a dog named Marilyn. Shiro is portrayed by the real-life Shiro.
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Double Bed
Title: Double Bed
Character: Man in Bar
Released: August 5, 1983
Type: Movie
Kato is a small time TV producer. He has a wife Masako, and a young son Taro. Kato also has a friend Yamazaki who he knew since college. Yamazaki has a girl friend Riko who lives with her younger sister Yuko who's an actress. Yamazaki is a lyric writer/womanizer and he starts to have an affair with Masako, but he's still going out with Riko.
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MOMENT
Title: MOMENT
Released: April 3, 1981
Type: Movie
Pocky, an upbeat high-schooler, is told she will die in three days by a psychic whose predictions always come true. Along the way, she talks about boyfriends with her two friends, meets a strange boy with heart disease, and regularly bumps into a serial bomber.
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I Can't Wait Until It's Dark!
Title: I Can't Wait Until It's Dark!
Character: Himself
Released: April 6, 1975
Type: Movie
Three cinephile university students have a go at making their own Super-8 film.
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The Erotic Empire
Title: The Erotic Empire
Character: self
Released: December 31, 1969
Type: Movie
A short history of the Japanese 'Pink' movie, focusing on the output of the Nikkatsu studio.