According to a number of Japanese media reports, Kobayashi Masahiro, who directed films such as "Premonition of Love" and "Walking with Spring", died of colorectal cancer at his home in Tokyo on the evening of August 20, local time, at the age of 68. Kobayashi Masahiro was diagnosed with a disease five years ago, and according to his wishes during his lifetime, there will be no public funeral.
Kobayashi Masahiro
Kobayashi Masahiro was born in Tokyo in 1954 and graduated from Gakuin High School, a famous private school in Japan. When he was young, he had a wide range of interests and was deeply influenced by the French "New Wave" director Truffaut's "The Four Hundred Blows", so he wanted to devote himself to film creation; he also loved American folk music, played a good guitar and was a folk singer. In 1981, he personally went to Paris, France, and went to various scenes of Truffaut's filming for a "Holy Land Tour".
The following year, Kobayashi, who returned to Japan, won the Jodo Award, which is designed to recognize outstanding scripts, and has since knocked on the door of the film and television industry. He first wrote the script for the TV station's animated series and live-action series, and then he hit it off with Toshiki Sato (サトウトシキ), one of the standard bearers of Japan's "Pink New Wave", and became his exclusive screenwriter. Diary", "Tuandi Wife", "Love Bath Hot Spring" and a series of pink movies.
In 1996, Masahiro Kobayashi became a director himself and established the company Monkey Town Production, and began to produce movies in the low-limit mode commonly used by pink directors. However, unlike his period as a screenwriter with a pink bubble, his directorial works are mostly obscure and absurd author films. The shooting style of his early works was deeply influenced by the French "New Wave", and they were often themes of crime that happened in ordinary life, often seen in film noir, and the background was mostly in Hokkaido. For example, the debut novel "Closing Time" with a frustrated screenwriter as the protagonist, "Prohibited Movie" about a pair of friends who belong to both black and white and a woman they love together, "Prohibited Movie" about a fired office worker who turns into a professional killer Killing", "The Police", which wanders between reality and fantasy after the loss of his wife.
"Love Premonition" poster
With the growth of age, Kobayashi Masahiro gradually transformed from a writer director to a social director, focusing on various social issues in Japan. For example, "Bash" is based on real events. It tells the story of a Japanese who was a volunteer in Iraq who was kidnapped. After he was released and returned to China, he encountered all kinds of indifference and discrimination, and finally he could not establish a foothold in his own country and returned to the war-torn Iraq. "Love Premonition" starring Kobayashi Masahiro himself and winning the Golden Leopard Award, the highest honor at the Locarno Film Festival, presents the disintegration of two families caused by a campus murder through restrained images. The most praised by the outside world is the "Trilogy" of "Walking with Spring", "Japanese Tragedy" and "Lear by the Sea" starring Japanese national treasure actor Tatsuya Nakadai.
Tatsuya Nakadai (left) and Masahiro Kobayashi
"Walking With Spring" presents a conflicting relationship between grandparents and grandchildren in the style of a road movie; "Tragedy in Japan" tells the life of a terminally ill father and a son who has lost his job and lost his family. His last directorial work, "Lear by the Sea," is about a once-prominent actor who has to face a downcast night.
Among them, "The Tragedy of Japan" is one of the few works by Masahiro Kobayashi that was not shot in Hokkaido. He once revealed that the inspiration for the film came from the 3.11 East Japan Earthquake. "With the problems of being out of society and dying alone, I felt that Japan may have come to an end. So, I wrote this script, wanting to make a movie that shows everything is going to collapse. Although the movie depicts only a small family, but I think it's also a microcosm of Japan as a country."
"Walking with Spring" poster
"Japanese Tragedy" poster
Nakadai Tatsuya has always praised Kobayashi Masahiro, he once commented: "In the context of pursuing works that are easy to understand, the lines written by screenwriters often explain everything clearly or are used to adding to the script. There are many annotations. But Kobayashi Masahiro never talks about the theme of the works. In his works, there are only the presentation of the relationship between people and very short lines, in order to give the final interpretation of the film Leave it to the audience."
After the news of Kobayashi Masahiro's death came out, Tatsuya Nakadai, who was performing a stage play in Nanao City, Ishikawa Prefecture, also expressed his condolences in an interview: "It's such a pity. We said before that we would make another movie together. When I was looking forward to talking about the next work, it was really sad to hear the news of his death suddenly." "We collaborated on "Walking with Spring", "Japanese Tragedy" and "Duel" (Masahiro Kobayashi). Screenwriter) "Lear by the Sea," he is a director who made me dream again as an actor in my later years. The Japanese film industry will miss him deeply for the loss of such a rare talent."
"Lear by the Sea" poster