Hideo Gosha: The Line Between Sleaze and Prestige Part 3 - The 1980s

Ocho in Death Shadows

 The 1980s proved to be an extremely dramatic decade for Hideo Gosha. It had the highest highs he’d ever reach in terms of creative freedom and productivity but his personal life hit a deadly roadblock along the way. Throughout this decade he completed 11 films and broke off with Fuji TV after working for them for at this point 2 entire decades. Once again the cinematic landscape had changed. The wave of Pinky violence was dead. Pinku was still popular but Nikkatsu’s Roman Pornos had imitators encroaching on their territory. The exploitation boom had fizzled out. The Kurosawa generation of filmmakers were fully in the background. Gosha hit his apex again while contributing to the industry wide shift.

After what’s considered his greatest film (Hunter In The Dark, which I sometimes agree but Bandits is as great), things spiraled out of control faster than Gosha could keep up. With a huge success behind him, projects should have been lining up one after another. Which happened but nothing came of them. Even Fuji TV had no use for him after he was arrested for possession of firearms. The TV studio forced him out, which was received well on both ends. His daughter, Tomoe, was in a horrific car accident. Hideo had to take care of her himself since his wife had recently left him. She had a lot of debt that had to be dealt with. So the resurgence was brief. Entering the 1980s, he had no real prospects regarding his film career.

Mr. Hell meeting with Oren in Death Shadows

The full impact of Hunter and Bandits can’t be understated. Up until to that point he hadn’t made anything reaching the level of prestige. Critics and audiences were on his side again. There was a reason Bandits was 4 years after Violent City, the longest gap in his filmography. Despite the success of the Ikenami Shotaro adaptations, Ikenami himself was not content with the films but that didn’t matter to Shokichu. Prior to those, Goyokin was an epic samurai revenge tale but adding a criminal/Yakuza element to the well-established formula changed him as a filmmaker. The scale, budget, cast, and production quality jumped onto a new level. Not to mention, him being seen as corrupt and dirty for having friends that were known Yakuza. Gosha had grown up around Yakuza and had started to heavily feature them in his films. On one hand, I understand the concern however, nothing appears to show any problems occurring because of his association with them. His career was on the verge of collapse again following his biggest artistic achievements to date.

Similarly to the 1960s, when Shochiku had no use for Gosha and Toei swept in with a major one. That film was Onimasa. It proved to recharge the industry’s faith in him and got him international attention and was a huge box office hit. It was in the running for the American Academy Awards Best Foreign Film category, but did not make the cut (which is a fucking crime). If it did though, it would have been the third Japanese film in that category to star Nakadai Tatsuya #NakadaiForever. Regardless, Gosha was in and was so successful that he started his production company in 1985, Gosha Pro. The first film made under this was Tracked (1985) aka Usugesho (which means make-up, a better title but still not a good one). This was his most productive period by far in terms of artistic growth and reception as a director. Critics were mostly on his side though a frequent criticism of his work was that they were gaudy or vulgar. The run of films concluded with Four Days of Snow and Blood, which took a dark turn during production. After the shooting was complete, he and producer Okuyama Kazuyoshi got into an ugly argument. Gosha walked off and forced Okuyama to finish up the film. It proved a success at the box office. The reason for Gosha’s leaving was due to a health concern. Hideo was dying of cancer. It was terminal.

Sakane and Chie

Tracked, 1985: Based on real murders - Sakane Tokichi (played by Ogata Ken) goes on the lam after killing his wife, son, and 2 neighbors. He drifts from construction site to construction site seeking basic labor and a lack of questions. Things get complicated when he meets Chie (played by Fuji Mariko), a woman caught in the same downward spiral as he. They fall in passionate love. The police track him through her. He wants to outrun his past and grow as a man. That may or may not be the case after getting caught at the end by the tenacious detective, who spent 8 years tracking him down. This is rated PG btw.

Death Shadows, 1986: A trio of Shadow Agents (basically ninjas) try to finish a mission taking down the deadliest gang plaguing the region. They fall for a trap. Their leader’s long lost daughter, Ocho (played by Ishihara Mariko), is being held prisoner. Everyone dies except for Ocho and the gang’s femme fatale, Oren (played by Natsuki Mari). Ocho takes over her dad’s mission to recover a very important document. A task that takes her on a kooky adventure with a Magic Mansion  filled with trap doors, a dirty cop, fake funerals, and Pita from Funeral Parade of Roses.

Unlike the other pairings in this series, these 2 films are drastically different from each other. Watching immediately one after the other prove a strange double feature. Death Shadows being an ostensibly ridiculous film about police ninjas fighting against authority to throw society into a state of chaos. Tracked taking the road less taken and forcing you to understand and accept a person with awful sins in his past.

Tracked, a wedding in a flashback

 Up until mid-1980s, he was seen as a hyper-masculine director of blood and crime-soaked samurai chanbara films with the exception of 1974’s Violent City. At first, they were grounded and the political messaging was on the surface. Eventually, becoming crazy and ridiculous exercises in excessive style and using Nakadai Tatsuya with a dash of Tamba Tetsuro. He’d spent most of his young life never feeling masculine enough and compensated infusing blood, anger, and blades in his filmography. Then, he made Tracked. This was more than another Gosha picture, it was a statement to the Japanese industry at large.

Following in the footsteps of Imamura’s Vengeance is Mine, he took another true crime story and adapted it to the screen. Even casting the same leader actor from Vengeance, Ken Ogata as yet another serial killer. It’s a variation of the serial killer on the run story. We are on along the 8 year ride with the killer, Sakane Tokichi. The story’s told in a dreamy patchwork of flashbacks, flash forwards throughout his 8 years on the lam. These portray Sakane in various states of his growth as a person. He starts out as a basic laborer who gets a fat payday, meant for all the miners, from the coal mine company after a deadly accident. He keeps the money and gets both lazy and horny. Chasing young women and clinging to the biggest radio he could find was more important than giving a shit about his wife and son. His youthful vigor combined with moral abandon turns him into the village louse. This contrasts with the older, gray/later dyed black Sakane who’s patient, tired and tenacious. He keeps his mouth shut, tries to remain in invisible on countless construction crews, and romances a similarly troubled woman. He stays faithful to her but can’t drag her down to his level.

Tracked, Chie and Sakane

 The process of humanizing someone like Sakane is a challenge, ethically and on a technical level. To some treating a real life figure like this as a legitimate person is a problem. It can be viewed as advocating certain behavior. It isn’t in this case. Art can and should be challenging to some capacity. Gosha strips away the masculine veneer of the last 21 years of his filmography by portraying how a ruthless killer can have a sensitive, human side. This is one of the most extreme examples of exposed fragile masculinity and humanity in arguably Gosha’s extreme film. There is no shying away from how bestial Sakane was in the flashbacks compared to him in the flash forwards. At first, he seems like a living ghost with nothing on his mind aside from staying ahead of the police. The sparks of humanity and a new moral compass surface as he’s forced to spend time with more outcasts like him. Initially, this results in at least one more murder before meeting Chie. She starts the process of his shift into a better person.

Sakane and the crime scene, Tracked

The culmination of this shift is best represented in a particular scene with a kid. There are only 2 scenes where he’s alone with a child. The first is a flashback set right before he kills his son. The murder is not shown but Sakane is clearly uncomfortable with what he’s about to do. The uneasy buildup of tension as he gets ready to murder his child reaches its apex but cuts out without a resolution. It was already well-established that he killed son. The outcome is known but being in that moment is painful. This is juxtaposition-ed with another scene towards the end where he’s about to leave for another construction site but the neighbor’s kid wanders in. Lingering tension is palpable when the Sakane clearly recalls his son’s death. He’s a deer in headlights. She can blow his cover but instead of lash out, he notices that Chie left her make-up. Inviting the little girl over, he chooses to give her a makeover. She loves it and runs back to her mom. This could appear creepy but there’s a real sense of parental catharsis. A younger Sakane would have never shown an ounce of interest in his son’s life or even voluntarily pay any attention to. This simple act doesn’t account for the years of neglect but it’s another step in his journey of becoming a better person. Both steps involve women. As he grows, he realizes that women are people too not just obstacles or prizes to be conquered.

Now, onto a different breed of film. Gosha was a master of the chanbara sub genre. Each one he made had a distinctly Gosha flavor and a growing sense of chaos and societal decomposition. Death Shadows carried on his personal motto, “Honpo hatsukokai,” meaning always something new. In terms of pure creativity, this blows away Bandits Vs Samurai Squadron and Hunter In The Dark. Those reached operatic highs within overly complex narratives. Death attempts to match those peaks but doesn’t quite do it.

Death Shadows, intro prologue

His work within the chanbara range started as realistic and rough. A sense of artificiality grew with each film. The worlds he created got dreamier, darker, and more artistic. In Sword of the Beast and Three Outlaw Samurai, there is no room for flights of fancy and excessiveness, yet they still have a signature style while copping a bit from Yojimbo and Sanjuro. The echoes of this are present throughout his chanbara work but eccentric flairs built up overtime. The artificial nature of Death is what makes it so much fun. The hero, Ocho, utilizes a dancer’s ribbon stick in her efforts to take down the Lord. The dance element isn’t only used in combat but also in hyper stylized interludes featuring Ocho or Oren. If you were wondering about the ribbon, yes she does hang at least one person in a kickass fight against corrupt cop, Mr. Hell. The exact purpose of these is unclear but that doesn’t matter. It’s part of the charm.

The basic story was in essence about trying to collapse the government from within. Ocho never learns why. In fact, her boss tries to kill her for knowing too much after completing the mission. It’s not surprising but essential to the feel. The tonal scale is set towards serious with a splash of over-the-top violence and kooky character work. It strays closer to Bandits Vs Samurai Squadron than any of his other chanbaras. Some of the same music is used in the exact same way. The main difference is the leads being women. Starting around this time, Gosha made some significant changes to his films. Women were the primary focus and stars. It’s a welcome change. He continued this throughout the remainder of his career. It added a new dimension for him to explore. Needless to say, Death Shadows is a blast that subtly gets increasingly crazy and absurd leading up to an explosive and stylish conclusion.

These 2 films in particular compared to the previous ones covered here are not only more of his catalog but they also show that he’s more than a action director. As stated above, Tracked was a statement about dismantling the masculinity and excessive style explored and utilized throughout his films. Death was a reminder that he could still successfully go back to the well. Unfortunately, reaching a new creative plateau of control and freedom was short-lived.

An original song written for Death Shadows