Shūsuke Kaneko (金子 修介, Kaneko Shūsuke, born June 8, 1955) is a Japanese filmmaker.
Life and career
Shūsuke Kaneko was born in Tokyo on June 8, 1955.[1] According to the biography on his official website Kaneko was interested in science fiction, particularly Godzilla and Gamera films, from a young age. He became involved in amateur film making in his teen years, but majored in education when he attended Tokyo Gakugei University.[1] After graduation, he found a job at the major Japanese movie studio Nikkatsu.[1] By 1982 he was a screenwriter and assistant director for Nikkatsu's Roman Porno film series.[2][3]
Kaneko made his debut as a director with Nikkatsu in February 1984 with Kōichirō Uno's Wet and Swinging, part of a long-running Nikkatsu series based on the works of erotic novelist Kōichirō Uno.[3][4] That work along with two other Roman Porno films he directed for Nikkatsu that year, OL Yurizoku 19-sai (OL百合族・19才) and Eve-chan-no hime (イヴちゃんの姫), won him the Best New Director award at the 6th Yokohama Film Festival.[4][5] The next year, his manga-based April 1985 movie for Nikkatsu, Minna Agechau, took the award as the 9th Best Film of the year at the 7th Yokohama Film Festival.[6] In July 1986, still at Nikkatsu, he directed Mischievous Lolita: Attacking the Virgin From Behind (いたずらロリータ 後からバージン, Itazura Lolita: Ushirokara virgin), which despite its strange title, was a fantasy about a sex-doll coming to life as a woman.[7][8] Kaneko's final film for Nikkatsu was the appropriately named Last Cabaret, the second to last of the studio's Roman Porno series. The film, released in April 1988, about a cabaret forced to close has been taken as a metaphor for the demise of the studio itself.[9][10]
The year 1988 marked a watershed in Kaneko's career as a director. At the 10th Yokohama Film Festival, he was given the Best Director award for his two films of 1988, the Roman PornoLast Cabaret for Nikkatsu and Summer Vacation 1999, a mainstream film for the Shochiku studio.[11] Nikkatsu ceased their Roman Porno film line that year and filed for bankruptcy a few years later[12] and Kaneko moved full-time into mainstream film.
^ abSharp, Jasper (2008). Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema. Godalming, Surrey, England: FAB Press. p. 236. ISBN978-1-903254-54-7.
^ abWeisser, Thomas; Yuko Mihara Weisser (1998). Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films. Miami: Vital Books: Asian Cult Cinema Publications. pp. 447–449. ISBN1-889288-52-7.
^第6回ヨコハマ映画祭: 1984年日本映画個人賞 (in Japanese). Yokohama Film Festival homepage. 2005-10-30. Retrieved 2015-05-31.