Teruo Ishii

was a Japanese film director best known in the West for his early films in the Super Giant series, and for his films in the ero guro ("erotic-grotesque") subgenre of pinku eiga such as Shogun's Joy of Torture (1968). He also directed the 1965 film Abashiri Prison, which helped to make Ken Takakura a major star in Japan. Referred to in Japan as "The King of Cult", Ishii had a much more prolific and eclectic career than was generally known in the West during his lifetime. Early life Born in Tokyo's Asakusa neighborhood in 1924, Ishii developed a love of cinema early. His parents would often take him to see foreign films, particularly French movies. Ishii worked at Toho Studios as an assistant director beginning in 1942. His film career was interrupted when he was sent to Manchuria during World War II to take aerial photographs for bombing runs. Shintoho In March, 1947 Ishii joined the newly founded Shintoho studios. Ishii would later recall his time with Shintoho as, "without doubt the most joyful period of my professional life." While at Shintoho he worked as assistant director to Mikio Naruse, whom he considered his mentor for the rest of his career. He also worked for director Hiroshi Shimizu and studied script writing with Shinichi Sekizawa, best known in the West for his entries in the Godzilla series. Ishii's directorial debut was in 1957 with the boxing film King of the Ring: The World of Glory (Ring no Oja: Eiko no Sekai). He was next assigned to direct six installments in the children's science-fiction series, Super Giant. This nine-episode series was later re-packaged into four films for U.S. syndicated television as Starman. From 1958 to 1961 Ishii directed four films in the film-noir Line (Chitai) series. For the last of these films, Sexy Line (Sexy Chitai) (1961), Ishii took his cameras to the streets of Asakusa and Ginza, in order to film real life on location. The film has been called "sharp, witty and contagious" and "a lively portrait of the Tokyo underworld, populated by hookers, johns, crooks and cops and shot in cinéma-verité style."