At the age of 86, Jo Shishido has passed. He was no spring chipmunk but an icon was lost. Not too many of his generation are still around, but he was more than just an actor in a bunch of 60s yakuza films.
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| Jo smelling cooking rice in BRANDED TO KILL |
I
first became aware of Shishido with the film, BRANDED TO KILL. I did not like the film (at the time), but
that puffy cheeked leading man was magnetic. At first, it was his cheeks. The first 15 or so minutes it was confusion. Once I got used it, I realized this guy with the cheeks is kinda great. After going through as many films as I could, I realized that he’s
simply the coolest guy on screen. It wasn’t merely a gimmick. It was Jo the Ace.
My fandom and appreciation for him grew as I delved deeper into Japanese film.
He is up there with Setsuko Hara, Ayako Wakao, Toshiro Mifune, and Tatsuya Nakadai. His heyday was yakuza B-pictures but he was arguably the undisputed
king of those.
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| Eiji Go with wife, singer Naomi Chiaki |
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| Kai Shishido |
Shishido was born on December 6, 1933 in Kita, Osaka, Japan. After high
school pursued theatre at Nihon University, and later dropped out. Nikkatsu started
running a New Faces contest in 1954. Shishido was one of the lucky chosen. A la a 60-year acting career had begun. At the time, he had not gained his signature puffy cheeks. He
was not the only actor in the family. Eiji Go (1937-1992), his brother, also
went into acting but his career was not as successful. They crossed paths a few
times in YOUTH Of THE BEAST (1963, Seijun Suzuki) and RETALIATION (1968, Yasuharu Hasebe). His son, Kai, is also an actor, working since 1980s.
During
the early years, Jo was known for playing romantic leads and supporting roles. This got old. He
wanted to be in yakuza action films. Naturally, he did the typical thing…get plastic
surgery. Not just any plastic surgery, he got cheek implants. A drastic change in roles and persona was needed to convince the higher ups at Nikkatsu. These aren’t puffy cheeks merely for the sake of it. His pretty boy phase was over, now he had the edge he was looking for. With this
new addition, he transitioned into the hard-boiled American Noir influenced
yakuza films. His days as a handsome lover were over. Nikkatsu took notice and
let loose their beast.
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| Jo in MASSACRE GUN (1968) |
Ask
most cinephiles and they’ll say that Suzuki Seijun and Shishido were a dynamic
duo. That wasn’t necessarily the case. Suzuki liked to work with Shishido, that’s it.
Perhaps, it’s because Criterion released their films together and thus the easiest to
access. They were not a Kurosawa and Mifune level pairing but Shishido and Suzuki heavily complimented each other. On that note, Shishido was only in
6 Suzuki films - VOICE WITHOUT A SHADOW
(1958), DETECTIVE BUREAU 2-3: GO TO HELL
BASTARDS (1963), YOUTH OF THE BEAST (1963),
GATE OF FLESH (1964), BRANDED TO KILL (1967), and A TALE OF SORROW AND SADNESS (1977).
Suzuki wanted him to star in TOKYO DRIFTER
(1966) but instead Nikkatsu wanted singer, Tetsuya Watari. Suzuki brought out the best and elevated his career. During this part of his career, he appeared in dozens of films for Nikkatsu.
Their films together are important and
influential - BRANDED TO KILL specifically.
Tarantino, Jarmusch, Wes Anderson, and countless others have either directly referenced it or
hinted at it. Suzuki provided him a chance to do what he always wanted to do - make unconventional films. Under the studio system, he was contracted into doing
the same parts in similar films. Anyone would get bored of that after some time.
Suzuki had the same working philosophy, which backfired on him in 1967.
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| Suzuki on set of GATE OF FLESH (1964) with Jo and Yumiko Nogawa |
His screen
presence was pure charisma. His voice displayed power, empathy, and respect.
Intensity and endless supply of cool exuded off every performance. He could do
it all - comedy, action, sing, dance, drama, you name it Jo can pull it off and
still be the coolest guy in the room. A natural aura of cool radiated off of
him. Very few have that innate sense of being this flat-out fucking cool, he’s in the same ballpark as
Steve McQueen and Robert Mitchum. It’s that unexplainable quality only saved for movie stars. You’re cool or you’re not. Jo Shishido became Jo the Ace because of
this. The ninkyo-eiga yakuza genre was not invented by him but he became one of its foundational pillars. If you say 1960s Nikkatsu, Jo Shishido is always one of the first names to pop up.
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| One of Jo's cookbooks |
After
the unjust firing of Suzuki for BRANDED TO KILL,
Shishido and others quit Nikkatsu in solidarity. This gesture was powerful but
there was a problem. He needed work. During the 1970s, his career blossomed
into TV, comedy, the new breed of yakuza films - jitsuroku-eiga, cookbooks, and other disparate
directions. The movie star days of his youth were over, but he was still popular and in demand. He even provided the dubbed voices for Burt Reynolds, Burt
Lancaster, and Donald Sutherland. By the end of his film career, he had over
250 credits. His most recent film being THE
FINAL JUDGEMENT (2012).
After
the passing of Yuko Shishido, his wife since 1962, in the spring of 2010, he slowed down and had
the cheeks implants removed. His house burned down in 2013. He was not home and lost decades of memorabilia. In 2011, he was even invited to NYFF as a guest. Outside of that, he lived a relatively quiet
life until his death on January 20, 2020. He’s survived by 3 children.
If
you haven’t seen any of his films, here are a few recommendations:
GATE OF FLESH (1964)
A COLT IS MY PASSPORT (1967)
DETECTIVE BUREAU 2-3: GO TO HELL
BASTARDS (1963)
RETALIATION(1968)
BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR AND HUMANITY:
FINAL EPISODE (1974) *he replaced Chiba
Sonny from an earlier BWHAH entry*
RIP Shishido Jo
Sources
Cited
http://shishido0.tripod.com/shishido.html
http://www.midnighteye.com/interviews/jo-shishido-toshio-masuda/
https://filminthedigitalagecynthia.wordpress.com/2014/03/18/jo-shishido/
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