Kō Nakahira


Kō Nakahira was a Japanese film director.
After dropping out of the University of Tokyo in 1949, Nakahira joined Shochiku as an assistant director. As assistant director, he worked for such filmmakers as Akira Kurosawa, Eisuke Takizawa, Keisuke Kinoshita and Yuzo Kawashima. In 1954, he moved to Nikkatsu. Two years later, while at Nikkatsu, he co-directed his first feature with Koreyoshi Kurahara, a 1956 noir film entitled The Shadow of Fear. That same year, he made his solo directorial debut with the film Crazed Fruit. Though Crazed Fruit was technically Nakahira's second feature, it was released first, as the immediate success of Yūjirō Ishihara's film Season of the Sun encouraged Nikkatsu to swap the release dates of The Shadow of Fear and Crazed Fruit.
Nakahira would go on to direct 48 films between 1956 and 1976, before dying on September 11, 1978. His 1971 film A Soul to Devils was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
He was known for his foundational, and frequently controversial, Sun Tribe films in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as his late 1960s collaborations with the Shaw brothers and his independent period of the 1970s. Nakahira's body of work spanned multiple genres, including noirs, thrillers, comedies, exploitation films, erotic dramas, gambling movies, girl gang films and spy parodies. His films were noted for their tight pacing, modernist visual flair and experiments with narrative and cinematic form, as well as Nakahira's ability to produce them quickly. Among his thematic preoccupations were the changing role of women in Japanese society, evolving standards of sexual ethics, the rejection of tradition among Japan's disaffected countercultural youth, infidelity and the dark side of human sexual desire.

Filmography as assistant director

Ojōsan shachō The Path of Sincerity
  • ''Jigoku no kengô Hirate Miki''

Filmography

List of films as director.Crazed Fruit, aka Juvenile Jungle The Shadow of Fear Frankie the Milkman Shu to midori: Zenpen shu no maki: Kôhen midori no maki Summer Storm Bitoku no yoromeki – Based on a Yukio Mishima novel.Streetlights Temptation Who's the Real Killer? or Who is the True Murderer? Kurenai no Tsubasa – One of the biggest Japanese box office successes of the 1950s.The Seasons of Love, aka Four Seasons of Love A Secret Rendezvous, aka The Assignation Break Down that Wall, aka Tear Down Those Walls Saijo Katagi or Saijo kishitsu The Inspector and the Gambler, aka The Girls and the Students The Jungle Block Wait for Tomorrow That Guy and I – Based on a novel by Yojiro Ishizaka. A portrait of youth grappling with new forms of love and sexual ethics at the height of the Anpo protests, the film was marketed as Yujiro Ishihara's comeback picture after he injured himself in a skiing accident, and went on to break Japanese box office records.The Storm Over Arabia, aka The Arab Storm – An Egyptian-Japanese co-production starring Yūjirō Ishihara, Hassan Youssef, Kamal el-Shennawi and Shadia. An Egyptian version was released in 1963, titled On the Banks of the Nile, aka Ala defaf el Nil, Ala difaf in-Nil or Ealaa difaf Al-Nayl.Danger Pays The Lucky General The Young and Bad, aka The Young, the Bad and the Strange Bright Sea I Have the Sun in My Back Modern Children The Mud-Spattered Pure Heart, aka Mud Spattered Purity Whirlpool of Flesh or Whirlpool of Women Only on Mondays Flora on the Sand, aka Plants from the Dunes, aka Jungle Interlude The Hunter's Diary Bastards Without Borders The Black Gambler – Sixth installment of Nikkatsu's Gambler series starring Akira Kobayashi.Gendai akutô jingi The Passionate Spinster Red Glass The Black Gambler: Left Hand of the Devil – Seventh installment of Nikkatsu's Gambler series starring Akira Kobayashi.Inter-Pol Kigeki Furoshiki Trapeze Girl The Spiders’ The Noisy Parade – A film inspired by the Beatles' Help!, starring Japanese band The Spiders. Nikkatsu fired Nakahira shortly after production wrapped due to his drinking on set. Thereafter he went independent and, in 1971, founded his own production company, Nakahira Productions.Summer Heat Diary of a Lady-Killer Rebel Against Glory A Crash Landing of Youth – A South Korean production.A Soul to Devils, aka Chimimoryo: A Soul of Demons, aka Evil Spirits in the Darkness – Nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.Rika: The Mixed-Blood Girl Rika 2: Lonely Wanderer Variation, aka Melody of Love – Shot in France and produced by the Art Theatre Guild.
Nakahira had planned to direct Kah-chan as his first film, but this was never realized. The film would eventually be made by Kon Ichikawa in 2001.

Personal life

Originally, Nakahira was named Koh Nakahira. He inherited his surname from his mother. Nakahira's Chinese name was Yeung Shu-Hei.
Nakahira was born on January 3, 1926 in Takinogawa Ward, Tokyo. His father, Toranosuke Takahashi, was an oil painter, and his grandmother had graduated from a music school and taught violin. Thus he grew up in a family that encouraged him to become an artist.
He became enthusiastic about film as a junior high school student upon seeing the works of René Clair and Billy Wilder. In 1948, Nakahira enrolled in the Department of Art of The Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo, but he dropped out the next year to become an assistant director at Shochiku.
Nakahira was an alcoholic. On September 11, 1978, he died of stomach cancer at the age of 52.