was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His work displays a vast range in genre and style, from the anti-war films The Burmese Harp (1956) and Fires on the Plain (1959), to the documentary Tokyo Olympiad (1965), which won two BAFTA Film Awards, and the 19th-century revenge drama An Actor's Revenge (1963). His film Odd Obsession (1959) won the Jury Prize at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival.
At his death in 2008, The New York Times recalled that "The Globe and Mail, the Canadian newspaper, called him in 2001 “the last living link between the golden age of Japanese cinema, the spunky New Wave that followed and contemporary Japanese film.”"
Biography
Early life
Ichikawa was born in Ise, Mie Prefecture as Giichi Ichikawa (市川儀一). His father died when he was four years old, and the family kimono shop went bankrupt, so he went to live with his sister.
Film career
He moved to the feature film department as an assistant director when the company closed its animation department, which was confiscated by the interim U.S. Occupation authorities under the pretext that it was too "feudal", but some sources suggest the script had not been approved by the occupying authorities. Thought lost for many years, it is now archived at the Cinémathèque Française.
It was at Toho that he met Natto Wada. Wada was a translator for Toho. They agreed to marry sometime after Ichikawa completed his first film as director. Natto Wada's original name was Yumiko Mogi (born 13 September 1920 in Himeji, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan); the couple both had failed marriages behind them. She graduated with a degree in English literature from Tokyo Woman's Christian University. She married Kon Ichikawa on 10 April 1948, and died on 18 February 1983 of breast cancer.
Ichikawa was among the first group of Toho staff that broke from the labor union during the Toho strikes, which became part of Shintoho. Due to a shortage of directorial talent at the new company, he made his debut as director with A Thousand and One Nights with Toho.
It was after Ichikawa's marriage to Wada that the two began collaborating, first on Design of a Human Being (Ningen moyo) and Endless Passion (Hateshinaki jonetsu) in 1949. The period 1950–1965 is often referred to as Ichikawa's Natto Wada period. It's the period that contains the majority of Ichikawa's most highly respected works, such as Tokyo Olympiad (Tōkyō Orinpikku), for which he was awarded the Olympic Diploma of Merit, as well as the BAFTA United Nations Award and the Robert Flaherty Award (now known as the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary).
Also in 2006, Ichikawa was the subject of a feature-length documentary, The Kon Ichikawa Story, directed by Shunji Iwai.
Ichikawa died of pneumonia on 13 February 2008 in a Tokyo hospital. He was 92 years old.
The Magic Hour marked Ichikawa's last appearance and was dedicated to his memory. (This message can be seen in the end of this film.) In this film, a movie director played by Ichikawa is shooting Kuroi Hyaku-ichi-nin no Onna ('A hundred and one dark women'), a parody of Ten Dark Women.
Filmography
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" |
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | English title
! scope="col" | Japanese title
! scope="col" | Romanized title
! scope="col" | Notes
! scope="col" | Ref
<!-- ! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Ref. -->
|-
! scope="row" align="center" | 1935
| Cowardly Samurai Squad
|
| Yowamushi Chinsengumi
| Animated short film
|
|-
! scope="row" align="center" | 1945
| A Girl at Dojo Temple
|
| Musume Dōjōji
| Puppet film
|
|-
! scope="row" align="center" | 1947
| A Thousand and One Nights with Toho
|
| Tōhō sen'ichiya
|
|
|-
! scope="row" align="center" rowspan="2" | 1948
| A Flower Blooms
|
| Hana hiraku
|
|
|-
! scope="row" align="center" rowspan="2" | 1949
| Human Patterns
|
| Ningen moyō
| Also known as Design of a Human Being
|
|
|-
! scope="row" align="center" rowspan="2" | 1973
| The Wanderers
| 股旅
| Matatabi
|
|
|-
! scope="row" align="center" rowspan="2" | 1976
| Between Women and Wives
|
| Tsuma to onna no aida
|
|
|-
| The Hall of the Crying Deer
|
| Rokumeikan
| Also known as High Society of Meiji
|
|-
! scope="row" align="center" | 1994
| 47 Ronin
| 四十七人の刺客
| Shijūshichinin no shikaku
|
|
|-
| The Inugamis
| 犬神家の一族
| Inugami-ke no ichizoku
| Sixth film starring Kōji Ishizaka as Kosuke Kindaichi; remake of The Inugami Family
|
Legacy
The Kon Ichikawa Memorial Room, a small museum dedicated to him and his wife Natto Wada displaying materials from his personal collection, was opened in Shibuya in 2015, on the site of his former home.
References
External links
<!--
- Obituary in The Times, 11 March 2008
-->
- (official site, in Japanese)
- Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
- Strictly Film School: Kon Ichikawa