Noboru Tanaka

was a Japanese film director known for his Roman Porno films, including three critically respected films known as the Showa trilogy: A Woman Called Sada Abe (aka Sada Abe: Docu-Drama), Watcher in the Attic (1976), and Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture! (1977), all three starring Nikkatsu Roman porno queen Junko Miyashita. The first film in this trilogy recounted the story of Sada Abe a year before Nagisa Oshima's internationally released In the Realm of the Senses (1976), which told the same story. Though at the time he was working, his career was overshadowed by directors such as Tatsumi Kumashiro and Chūsei Sone, many critics today judge Tanaka the best of Nikkatsu's Roman porno directors.

Life and career

Early life Tanaka was born in Hakuba in Nagano prefecture on August 15, 1937. He majored in French literature at Meiji University in Tokyo. Tanaka said that his interest in the cinema came about through a circuitous route. Early in life he wanted to be a novelist.

While working on his thesis, dealing with this interest in the relationship between imagery and literature, Tanaka took a part-time job at a movie studio to gain first-hand knowledge of film production. He served as a production assistant on Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961), an experience which created Tanaka's enthusiasm for the film industry. Among the films on which Tanaka worked at this time was Imamura's The Pornographers.

Roman porno "I think Nikkatsu's position in the industry is unique. It's a large company, but we worked on one single concept, sex, for 18 years, and made a very large number of films. Having sex is an activity where we clearly show our true natures. Examining the relationships between men and women is one of the best ways to show the essence of human beings. So we thought that by working with the theme of sex, we could explore ourselves more deeply and express the very core of the world."– Noboru Tanaka In the late 1960s, Nikkatsu began having severe financial trouble due to audiences lost to television and an influx of Western films. In order to avoid bankruptcy, Takashi Itamochi, president of Nikkatsu, made the decision to put the company's high production values and professional talent into the adult, or pink film industry as a way of attracting a new audience. Nikkatsu called its line of pink films "Roman Porno", and started the series in November 1971. Rather than work in sex films, many directors left the studio at this time, opening up positions for younger directors in their wake. Tanaka remembers his attitude about Nikkatsu's decision, "I was excited and positive about the changes, and was very eager to work in this new genre as a director." Patrick Macias notes the diversity of styles this format allowed. Director Chūsei Sone "specialized in ribald tales from the past", Yasuharu Hasebe, "delivered frightening, raw, and violent images", and Tanaka created films which were "as sophisticated as they were erotic."

Tanaka was given his first chance to direct in 1972 with the early Roman porno, Beads From a Petal. Originally called I Am Burning Up (Moeagaru Watashi), a title Tanaka always preferred, the story deals with the sexual awakening of a frigid woman. Tanaka meant the film to be an allegorical depiction of Japanese society in the post-war years, later saying, "After the war, Japan suffered from frigidity and the film described how the psychological bruises Japan suffered from would gradually be cured as time passed, through a young woman's life." Though criticized for some heavy-handed symbolism, this first film showed Tanaka's ability to give a movie a strikingly interesting look.

The same year, Tanaka directed Night of the Felines, an unusually realistic look at the lives of a group of prostitutes. This is considered one of Tanaka's early major films. Also in 1972, he gained critical approval for his Woman on the Night Train. Even in this early work Tanaka's direction is called, "some of the best in any pink film."

As his career progressed, Tanaka's films became known for their imaginative, sometimes surreal, use of color and poetic imagery within the setting of a harsh, brutal world. In 1973, Tanaka directed the second entry in the Secret Chronicle trilogy, Secret Chronicle: Torture Hell. In contrast to the first entry in the trilogy, a satirical depiction of a 19th-century brothel, Tanaka's film was a serious look at religious-sexual ceremonies at a temple. For this effort, Tanaka won the Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Citation in 1973. The last film of this trilogy, Secret Chronicle: She Beast Market (1974) returned to the satirical style of the first film. The cast included the popular poet Sakumi Hagiwara playing the memorable role of a man who simultaneously commits suicide and wipes out a gang of yakuza when he explodes a gas-filled inflatable sex-doll.

The second entry Tanaka's Showa Trilogy, Watcher in the Attic (1976), also starring Sada Abe'''s Junko Miyashita, was a breakthrough for Tanaka. Magill's Survey of Cinema calls this adaptation of a Rampo Edogawa novel "a frenzied fantasy treat." Mainstream critics recognized that Tanaka's work in this film made it stand out from its modest pink film origins. The Peer Cinema Club Annual, a conservative publication which did not normally concern itself with Pink films, judged it "a perfect marriage of decadence and art." Tanaka's depictions of Edogawa's ero guro nansensu style, voyeurism and the Taishō period were influential on later films such as Kazuyoshi Okuyama's Mystery of Rampo (1994), Akio Jissōji's Rampo films, including The D-Slope Murder Case (1998), and Rampo Noir (2005).

The third film in the Showa Trilogy, Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture! (1977) while still a box-office hit, was not as well-received by the critics of the time as the two preceding entries, perhaps because of its more extreme, sado-masochistic theme. Rape and Death of a Housewife (1978), despite its sensationalistic title, is considered one of Tanaka's masterpieces, and was his major mainstream critical break-through. Kinema Jumpo gave the film their "Best Film" award for 1979, and Tanaka was nominated for Best Director at the second Japanese Academy of Films and Motion Pictures ceremony for this film and Pink Salon: Five Lewd Women (also 1978). Pink Salon: Five Lewd Women was praised for its sympathetic view to the women characters, somewhat unusual for a Roman porno. Some critics have commented on the story's similarity to Ridley Scott's 1991 Thelma & Louise.

Later years After a few lean years, Tanaka made a come-back effort with the third entry in the Angel Guts series, the critical and box-office success, Angel Guts: Nami (1980). Jasper Sharp writes that, from the point of character, plotting and construction, Tanaka's film is the most satisfying entry in the series, based on an adult manga by Takashi Ishii. He notes, however, that Tanaka's visuals are over-active make the film a difficult one for most viewers. Tanaka recalled, "I was determined to make a film which was much more impressive than the comic. One image of a film has to be much more impressive than one frame of the comic. That's what film is all about. For the scene in which we see Nami's eye in close-up on the screen, I shot about 3,000 feet of film just to show the details of her eye and [its] movement, including the pulsing of a blood vessel."

After making nearly 25 films for Nikkatsu, He returned to Nikkatsu to direct Monster Woman '88 (1988) and then retired from the film industry. Allmovie writes that Tanaka was a director of films "so adventurous and bizarre that he soon became one of Japan's most celebrated directors,"

Filmography Title CastRelease date Beads from a PetalKaben no Shizuku Rie NakagawaKeiko MakiKazuko Shirakawa 1972-02-09 Night of the CatsMesunekotachi no Yoru Tomoko KatsuraHidemi HaraKen Yoshizawa 1972-05-17 Woman on the Night TrainYogisha no Onna Mari TanakaKeiko TsuzukiToshihiko Oda 1972-07-19 The Amorous Family: The Fox and the BadgerKoshoku Kazoku: Kitsune to Tanuki Mari TanakaMikiko SakaiHidemi Hara 1972-09-06 Excitement Class: Love TechniquesKanno Kyoshitsu: Ai no Technique Mari TanakaNobutaka MasutomiRyoji Nakamura 1972-11-08 Love in the Afternoon: MetamorphosisHirusagari no Joji: Henshin Miyoko AoyamaKeiko AikawaAkira Takahashi 1973-01-24 Confidential: The Hell of Tortured ProstitutesMaruhi: Jorozeme Jigoku Rie NakagawaYuri YamashinaHijiri Abe 1973-04-14 Strange Feelings During the NightMayonaka no Yosei Yuri YamashinaMorio KazamaSetsuko Ohyama 1973-07-14 Private Life of a School MistressOnna Kyoshi: Shiseikatsu Ayako IchikawaMorio KazamaHitomi Kozue 1973-08-25 Confidential: Sexual MarketMaruhi: Shikijo Mesu Ichiba Meika SeriGenshu HanayagiJunko Miyashita 1974-09-11 A Woman Called Sada AbeJitsuroku: Abe Sada Junko MiyashitaHideaki EzumiNagatoshi Sakamoto 1975-02-08 International Gang in KobeKobe Kokusai Gang 1975-10-14 Watcher in the AtticEdogawa Rampo Ryoki-kan: Yaneura no Sanposha Junko MiyashitaRenji IshibashiTokuko Watanabe 1976-06-12 Sex Life and Escape of the Gangster Ando NoboruAndo Noboru no Waga Toto to Sex no Kiroku 1976-10-01 Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture!Hakkinbon Bijin Ranbu Yori: Semeru! Junko MiyashitaHatsuo YamayaMaya Kudo 1977-02-23 School MistressOnna Kyoshi Eiko NagashimaYasuo Furoya 1977-10-29 Rape And Death Of A HousewifeHitozuma Shudan Boko Chishi Jiken Hideo MurotaNoriko KurosawaAkira Sakai 1978-07-08 Pink Salon: Five Amorous WomenPink Salon: Koshoku Gonin Onna Erina MiyaiKyoko AoyamaMiyako Yamaguchi 1978-11-03 Angel Guts: NamiTenshi no Harawata: Nami Eri KanumaTakeo ChiiMinako Minushima 1979-07-07 Target of LustAiyoku no Hyoteki Erina MiyaiMinako MizushimaShin Nakamaru 1979-12-22 Hard Scandal: Drifter of SexHard Scandal: Sei no Hyoryu-sha AkoRie KitaharaYudo Yoshikawa 1980-10-04 "Love Me Strong... Love Me Hard"Motto Hageshiku Motto Tsuyoku Maki KawamuraIzumi ShimaTatsuo Yamada 1981-05-15 Village of DoomUshimitsu no Mura 1983-01-15 View of the BudTsubomi no Nagame Yōko KonMitsuru HirataKōichi Satō 1986-04-26 Monster Woman '88Yojo Densetsu '88 1988-09-23