The Sword Heartless, Fireworks Destiny

Hideo Gosha devoted himself to the creation of violent films and erotic films as a director of Japanese genre. During the earlier stage of his film career, he made the violent films which focused on the male characters such as Samurai and Yakuza, He carried on the traditions of Chambara and Yakuza films, and innovated in the genres. During the later stage, he made the erotic films which paid close attention to the female characters such as Geisha and prostitutes. He expanded the field and depth of erotic films. The change of his earlier and later stages has a close relationship with the development of Japanese genres.This paper will analyze the director’s earlier and later creation from four aspects: subject matters, themes, characters and visual and aural elements. The first chapter will discuss about the reasons and cultural background of his choosing and change of the subject matters. And it will evaluate his achievements and deficiency objectively. The second chapter will analyze the themes by observing the disillusion of the male characters’hopes and their lost state and thinking about the sadness of female characters and their fatalism. This chapter will also consider the views of Japanese traditional esthetics. The third chapter will analyze the maturing creation of characters and the developmental relationships between them, based on the narrative strategy of Binary Opposition. The fourth chapter will discuss about the strong sense of the visual rhythm from three aspects:scene scheduling, shooting at higher than normal frame rates and the film editing. This chapter will also conclude the style of the rich and gaudy colors in the films, and it will analyze the effect of the aural elements as well.