Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 1903254434, Paperback)

Nikkatsu, the oldest film studio in Japan, restarted production in 1954 after WWII. To survive in Japan's brutally competitive film market, it launched a new genre called Nikkatsu Action. Nikkatsu Action defined cool for a generation and drawing inspiration from Hollywood and the French New Wave, it found salvation in Yujiro Ishihara, a hot new star who was Japan's Elvis Presley and James Dean Nikkatsu Action pictures blended East and West fantasies, showing the gritty reality of life in postwar Japan, from the hot jazz clubs and glam cabarets of the Ginza to the foggy loneliness - and danger - of the Yokohama docks at midnight. In the 1960s, Nikkatsu went Pop with a bang in films like Black Tights Killers, Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill. • Packed with illustrations, including color posters and stills • History of the studio • Profiles of stars and directors • Film reviews • Career interviews with Joe Shishido, Toshio Masuda and Seijun Suzuki