Page 16 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema

Introduction 3

encoded with visual motifs from both Noh and Kabuki theatrical
traditions and set in medieval Japan. Meanwhile, US directors like John
Sturgis, George Lucas, and Gore Verbinski take Kurosawa Akira’s The
Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai, 1951) and The Hidden Fortress
(Kakushi-toride no san-akunin, 1958), and Nakata Hideo’s Ringu, and
fashion, respectively, The Magnificent Seven (USA, 1960), Star Wars
(USA, 1977) and The Ring (USA, 2002), works that erase ‘Japanese
cultural specificity’ in favour of ‘American modes of social and political
organization’ (Blake 2006: 1-2).
While a lengthy consideration of the politics of cross-cultural
adaptation in ‘New Asian Horror’ cinema in general and Japanese horror
film in particular would make for a compelling book-length study in its
own right, such an exploration ultimately exceeds this volume’s focus.
Nevertheless, Nightmare Japan: Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema
by no means elides relevant cultural excavations; in the pages to follow,
this book offers a sustained interrogation of contemporary Japanese
horror cinema that carefully considers the ‘intricate matrix’ of social,
cultural, and historical ‘relations’ (Cohen 1996: 2-3) that give rise to this
influential tradition in world cinema. It is also a book whose time has
come. Scholars, surprisingly, have allotted remarkably little extensive
critical attention to the contemporary profusion of Japanese horror films.
Individual, and frequently groundbreaking, articles by noted scholars like
Jaspar Sharp and Tom Mes, as well as successful mass-market writers
from Chris Desjardins to Patrick Macias, provide valuable insights into
the social dynamics that render certain aspects of Japanese horror cinema
impenetrable to some viewers. In the process, their writings establish
valuable critical and historical groundwork, paving inroads for future
academic sojourns. In addition, several vital anthologies on international
horror cinema provide interested readers with crucial opportunities for
gaining an increased understanding of both familiar and lesser-known
works of Japanese cinematic horror, as well as some of the cultural,
political, and economic factors that shape these unique and disquieting
visions. These collections include, among others, Fear Without Frontiers:
Horror Cinema from around the Globe (Schneider, 2003), Horror Film:
Creating and Marketing Fear (Hantke, 2004), and Horror International