New Japanese Gore films

There is a new trend among the more way-out Japanese films for wildly over-the-top stories and fountaining gore effects, perhaps as a reaction to the rampant success of the more ghostly Japanese horror films (at exactly the time some people were predicting the death of J-Horror) and tapping into the ero guro spirit that seems to surface sporadically in Japanese culture. This list, a spin-off from my one on weird Japanese films, will try and chart this development, as all these films have involvement from a small group of film makers.

Although drawing a line in the sand can be a little arbitrary I'm going with the start of this phenomena being the impressive success of Versus. The team would get back together again for Alive in 2002 and again for Battlefield Baseball in 2003, this time with writer Yudai Yamaguchi moving into the director's chair and being joined by producer Yoshinori Chiba, who would be a recurring presence throughout the rest of the list (first through his own company Media Suits, then with Nikkatsu one of Japan's oldest film production companies and then through the Nikkatsu subsidiary set-up specifically to work with such filmmakers).

The first of the New Japanese Gore films (nu J-Gore?) is really Meatball Machine, again directed by Yamaguchi with Versus/Battlefield Baseball/Death Trance star Tak Sakaguchi as action director, but bringing in the most important element - special effects monster Yoshihiro Nishimura, Japan's Tom Savini (I was going to go with "Japan's Screaming Mad George," as this would be a better stylistic parallel, but then remembered SMG is Japanese). The film gave the transgressive and transformational style of film like Tetsuo a more organic, body horror-style (possibly biopunk) makeover which helped set the standard for future films. Nishimura then provided the special effects for Machine Girl, which also brings in the final two key players in the story: visual effects wizard Tsuyoshi Kazuno and director Noboru Iguchi who moved over from directing adult videos, to more... exploitationy films (his earlier Sukeban Boy captures him in transition between the two). This then properly launched this new wave of Japanese gore films with a shifting line-up of writers, directors and effects people, with the same names cropping up time and again. in 2010 a lot of those highlighted here formed a production company called Sushi Typhoon.

There are other films that would fit in with these but I wanted to focus on those from the same family of creators (although it probably needs a family tree diagram to best explain it) - if you want more, and longer history going back before Versus, then I have a more complete list. If you are looking for the older violent and gory Japanese films, then you'll find them here.

I think one term that popped up might be telling: Gaijinsploitation. I've seen no real explanation of the term although the etymology is easy enough: gaijin is a Japanese term for foreigner, but there are no foreigners in the films being exploited, so are the films themselves exploiting us, the foreigner viewer, giving us what we think we want to see in a crazy Japanese film? After all it does seem the bulk of the early market was abroad - in early 2011 Noboru Iguchi said that "Nishimura and I always had much success with these films internationally at festivals, but it's only with the past few that we have developed an audience within Japan as well." Worth noting the involvement of Media Blasters in this (specifically their Tokyo Shock line) - they helped get Death Trance made and moved quickly to capitalise on Machine Girl which led to Tokyo Gore Police. Yoko Hayama works for Media Blasters and was the producer on these films and she said that they'd asked the creators "to make their story for adult, male audience in US" based on what they knew sold best in their Tokyo Shock line. If the creators were just giving us what they think we want, then there is a real danger of the titles becoming cliched and tired, in much the same way as the success of the ghost films, shinrei-mono, led to inferior imitators, unnecessary remakes and its ultimate downfall). However, the wild creative energy from those involved does seem to helping them leap over such pitfalls and forming their own production company looks like a positive step too. The real problem might come when Hollywood tries to cash-in on this, although the content may be too out-there to be properly re-bottle the lightning on American soil, so we'll wait and see.

There is an earlier film that is part of the connections here but isn't listed on IMDB although it has been released on DVD as Snot Rocket and Super Detective, as Nishimura has explained when talking about his working relationship with Tak:

The first job we did together was the independent film “The Snotty Detective” (released through Tokyo Shock in North America) with director Yudai Yamaguchi.

Anyway before, finally, getting to the list, I thought I'd highlight the way the core New Japanese Gore (NJG) films tend to fall into a number of general phases:

* The initial one where the key players started to assemble around Ryuhei Kitamura and they got a lot of international attention thanks to the success of Versus.
* The Fundoshi Corps films with producer Yukihiko Yamaguchi that set out the stall for the NJG films with Meatball Machine.
* The Fever Dreams (Media Blasters' production company for original content) co-productions with Nikkatsu through producers Yoko Hayama and Yoshinori Chiba (for Fever Dreams and Nikkatsu, respectively), which started at the end of the initial phase with Death Trance and would take NJG films.
* The Gaijinsploitation period which would build on the previous NJG films.
* The Sushi Typhoon films with Yoshinori Chiba as the main producer (it is a subsidiary of Nikkatsu).
* Nishimura Eizo films, it has the same name as Nishimura's special effects company but is listed separately here as a production company too, so he might be taking the work in-house. The output here is varied trying out new ideas and collaborations, from a couple of kaijufilms to contributing segments to anthology films some of which (like the portmanteau pieces) that keep the spirit of NJG alive.

Further reading: A good piece from Horror News and they have a follow-up looking at this set of films giving them the title Tokyo Gore" (which is almost unGooglable so I have no idea how widespread the usage is). Sketches of Cinema have a useful overview of the key releases.

See also: Splat Pack and New French Extremity films, movies from other groups of film-makers pushing the envelope of what is acceptable.

Comments: As I don't have a Facebook account I cannot interact with the new comments system, so have switched it off. I will start a thread on the message board and link it in here shortly.