Page 20 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema

Introduction 7

long black hair is often aligned in the Japanese popular imaginary with
conceptualisations of feminine beauty and sensuality, and the image of
the gazing female eye (or eyes) is frequently associated with vaginal
1
imagery.
Though restrictions imposed by US colonialist forces following
the war’s end initially prohibited the production of kaidan that were set
during historical periods that might, in the eyes of the occupation forces,
inspire an ideologically inconvenient form of nationalism, the progressive
loosening of limitations facilitated the genre’s re-emergence in the form
of thematically rich and visually stunning productions by some of Japan’s
most celebrated auteurs. Directors responsible for some of the best known
kaidan of the 1950s and 1960s decades include Mizoguchi Kenji (Ugetsu
monogatari, 1953), Kobayashi Masaki (Kaidan, 1964), and the noted
Japanese new wave filmmaker, Kaneto Shindô (Onibaba, 1964).
Works of daikaiju eiga, with their over-the-top representations of
Japanese urban centres under assault by giant dinosaurs and insects
(among other fantastically and gargantuan creatures), are among the most
immediately recognisable films in Japanese cinema. Prolific director
Honda Ishirô led the way with Godzilla (Gojira, 1954) and its twenty-
plus sequels, as well as his Rodan (Sora no daikaijû Radon, 1956),
Mothra (Mosura, 1961), and Dogora the Space Monster (Uchu daikaijû
Dogora, 1965). Yuasa Noriaki also contributed substantially to this
deluge of giant monster films with his Gamera (Daikaijû Gamera, 1965)
series, as did Yasuda Kimiyoshi, with his 1966 feature, Majin: Monster of
Terror (Daimajin) and its sequels. These daikaiju eiga provided the
perfect arena for the expression of numerous social anxieties, not the least
of which constellate about the dread of mass destruction, mutation and
the environmental impact of pollution resulting from rapid
industrialisation. As Japan remains the only nation to have suffered a
direct attack by atomic weapons, a devastating incident followed by
decades of exposure to US military exercises and atomic tests in the

1
See Barrett, G. (1989) Archetypes in Japanese Film: The Sociopolitical and Religious
Significance of the Principle Heroes and Heroines, Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University
Press. For a detailed study of hair in Japanese culture, see Batchelor, John (2000), Ainu of
Japan: The Religion, Superstitions and General History of the Hair, Mansfield Centre:
Martino Publishing.