Daiei Film

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This article is about Daiei Film. For Daiei, see Daiei (disambiguation).
Daiei Film
Tokuma Shoten

Daiei Film Co. Ltd. (

Rashomon (1950) and Kenji Mizoguchi's Ugetsu (1953), but also launching several film series, such as Gamera, Zatoichi and Yokai Monsters, and making the three Daimajin films (1966). It declared bankruptcy in 1971 and was acquired by Kadokawa Pictures
.

History

Origin

Daiei Film was the product of government efforts to reorganize the film industry during World War II in order to rationalize use of resources and increase control over the medium. Against a government plan to combine all the film studios into two companies,

Chofu, Tokyo and in Uzumasa in Kyoto
.

Golden era

Gate of Hell Japanese theatrical release poster

Nagata became president in 1947 and, apart from a brief period when he was purged by

Raizō Ichikawa, the original Gamera series, the Daimajin trilogy and the Yokai Monsters
trilogy. Daiei also produced many television series such as Shōnen Jet.

At its peak, Daiei featured such talent as the actors Raizō Ichikawa, Shintaro Katsu,

Yasuzo Masumura, Tokuzō Tanaka,[7] and Kenji Misumi;[7] and the cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa and Fujirō Morita
.

Like some other Japanese film studios, Daiei had its own professional baseball team in the 1950s, the Daiei Stars, which later became the Daiei Unions. These teams eventually became the Chiba Lotte Marines.

Bankruptcy and afterward

Suffering from Nagata's profligacy and an industry-wide decline in attendance, Daiei tried to stay alive by teaming up with Nikkatsu to create Dainichi Eihai, but eventually declared bankruptcy in December 1971. Art director Yoshinobu Nishioka and some of the studio's other employees founded Eizo Kyoto Production.[8] Other members of the union, however, succeeded in getting Yasuyoshi Tokuma, the president of the publishing house Tokuma Shoten, to revive the company in 1974.[1] The company continued as a producer, making only a small number of films, some of which were big budget spectaculars like the international co-production The Go Masters (1982), a new Gamera trilogy (1995, 1996 and 1999), art house hits like Shall We Dance? (1996), and genre films like Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse or Takashi Miike's Dead or Alive films.

Following the passing of Yasuyoshi Tokuma, Daiei Film Co. was sold to the Kadokawa Shoten Publishing Co. In November 2002, Chairman Maihiko Kadokawa announced that Daiei Film Co. would merge with the company's own film division, Kadokawa Pictures, to form Kadokawa-Daiei Film Co. Ltd.[9] In 2004, it dropped the name Daiei and is now known simply as Kadokowa Pictures.

Filmography

Anime productions

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Shoemaker, Greg. "Daiei: A History of the Greater Japan Motion Picture Company". The History Vortex. Archived from the original on 18 September 2007. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  2. ^ "Nagata Masaichi". Keizai ketsubutsu retsuden. Jabira. Archived from the original on 2 April 2012. Retrieved 29 December 2011.
  3. ^ "Master director dies". BBC News. 6 September 1998. Retrieved 29 December 2011.
  4. ^ "1954: Best Foreign-Language Film". All about Oscar. Britannica. Retrieved 29 December 2011.
  5. ^ "Awards 1954". Festival de Cannes. Archived from the original on 18 December 2016. Retrieved 29 December 2011.
  6. ^ "IMDB.com: Awards for Jokyo". imdb.com. Retrieved 29 December 2011.
  7. ^ a b "大映の黄金期を支えた映画監督、死去". imidas Shueisha. Retrieved 27 November 2021.
  8. ^ "太秦支えた最後の活動屋、西岡善信美術監督逝く" (in Japanese). Nikkei. Retrieved 26 November 2021.
  9. ^ "Kadokawa Company History 2002(H14)" (in Japanese). Retrieved 30 December 2011.

External links

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