Zeze Takahisa Makes the Case for Original Films — SkimNews
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- Zeze Takahisa presented a full-house Tokyo Talk masterclass at Tokyo Midtown Hibiya, discussing his early pink and independent films before turning to more recent work; he was also director of the Tokyo International Film Festival’s opening film, “Sukiyaki.”
- “Extracurricular Activity: Rape”, scripted by Zeze Takahisa, marked his 1989 directorial debut, won the Pink Grand Prix Award for Best New Director and followed delinquent high school girls who hang out at Haneda Airport and battle yakuza.
- “Four Heavenly Kings of Pink” brought together Zeze Takahisa, Sano Kazuhiro, Sato Toshiki and Sato Hisayasu under a name adopted for critical and commercial cachet; their films drew retrospectives at the Rotterdam festival, and overseas reception came before the work was re-imported into Japan.
- Zeze Takahisa recalled that pink films screened for exclusively male audiences and required a bed scene every 10 minutes or so; greater freedom from the early 1990s onward informed his interest in female criminals and 1994’s “Genuine Lesbians: Embarrassing Positions,” which mirrored period mysticism.
- “Kokkuri-san” marked Zeze Takahisa’s mainstream debut in 1997 with a teen horror, after which he alternated between pink and mainstream films for the next decade.
- “Heaven’s Story” became Zeze Takahisa’s most ambitious film to date: a 278-minute revenge drama that screened in the Forum section of the Berlin Film Festival in 2010, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize.
- “64” was Zeze Takahisa’s hit two-part 2016 mystery/suspense adaptation of a bestselling novel, a release he cited while arguing that the industry is too focused on the “source material market” and that original concepts are “incredibly important.”
Why it matters: Original-story filmmakers have a high-profile advocate in Zeze, whose 2010 “Heaven’s Story” was a 278-minute revenge drama and FIPRESCI Prize winner at the Berlin Film Festival. His hit 2016 “64,” adapted from a bestselling novel, shows his criticism of the source-material market comes from direct industry experience.
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