Toshiya Fujita

, also known as , was a Japanese film director, film actor, and screenwriter. He is well-regarded in Japan for his youth films but is best known abroad for Lady Snowblood and Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance, films not typical of his usual style. Life and career Fujita was born in Pyongyang, Korea. After graduating from Tokyo University, he joined the Nikkatsu studio in 1955. At Nikkatsu, he worked as a publicist, screenwriter, cinematographer and assistant director until he made his debut as a director in 1967. His first film, about a juvenile delinquent, Hikō shōnen: Hinode no sakebi, won him the 1967 New Directors Award from the Directors Guild of Japan. After a successful sequel, Hikō shōnen: Wakamono no toride , Fujita was tapped by Nikkatsu to direct two installments in their youth-oriented Alleycat Rock series which had been initiated in 1970 by director Yasuharu Hasebe with Alleycat Rock: Female Boss. Fujita's two episodes, Stray Cat Rock: Wild Jumbo and Alleycat Rock: Crazy Riders '71, both starred actress Meiko Kaji. Fujita's August 1971 film for Nikkatsu, Wet Sand in August, a melodramatic look at disenchanted youth in a beach setting, was both a popular hit and a major critical success. Three months later Nikkatsu inaugurated their Roman porno era of big budget softcore pink films. Fujita stayed on with Nikkatsu and his two sequels to Wet Sand in August, the 1972 Scent of Eros in August and the 1973 Sweet Smell of Eros were both produced as part of the Roman porno line. Fujita, however, was able to forge a compromise with the sex and nudity demands of the Roman porno genre to bring these films, especially Sweet Smell of Eros, close to mainstream acceptance. In the 1970s, Nikkatsu was still producing non-adult films as well as Roman porno and Fujita made a number of realistic dramas about youth and the generation gap including the 1973 Did the Red Bird Escape? (Akai tori nigeta) and two works from 1974, Virgin Blues and The Red Lantern, the latter film having been described as a young couple's "futile attempt to escape from a restrictive society." The two films for which Fujita is best known outside Japan, Lady Snowblood (1973) and its sequel Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance (1974), were produced by an independent company during a short hiatus from Nikkatsu. These violent action movies, quite different from Fujita's usual style, reunited him with Meiko Kaji, the star of his earlier Alleycat Rock films.