Ichikawa Kon

born Nov. 20, 1915, Ise, Japan

Japanese film director.

After working in the animation department of the Tōhō film studio, he directed his first film, The Girl at Dojo Temple (1946). He introduced sophisticated Western-style comedy to Japan in films such as The Woman Who Touched Legs (1952) and Mr. Pū (1953). He gained international acclaim for his antiwar films The Burmese Harp (1956) and Fires on the Plain (1959) and the documentary Tokyo Olympiad (1965). His other major films include Conflagration (1958), My Enemy the Sea (1963), and An Actor's Revenge (1963).

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▪ Japanese director

born Nov. 20, 1915, Uji-Yamada (now Ise), Japan

died Feb. 13, 2008, Tokyo

      Japanese motion-picture director who introduced sophisticated Western-style comedy to Japan in the 1950s. Later he became concerned with more-serious subjects such as antiwar sentiment.

      Ichikawa graduated from the Ichioka Commercial School in Ōsaka. He worked in the animation department at the J.O. motion-picture studio in Kyōto and entered the Tōhō Motion Picture Company in 1942, when J.O. was merged with Tōhō. He made his first motion picture, Musume Dojo-ji (The Girl at Dojo Temple), in 1946 for the Shintōhō Motion Picture Company. Sambyaku rokujūgo ya (1948; “Three Hundred and Sixty-five Nights”) was his first big box-office success. He collaborated with his wife, Wada Natto, a screenwriter, on the screenplays for many of his early films.

      In the 1950s, Ichikawa and Wada developed the genre of the verbally witty comedy in Japan in such pictures as Ashi ni sawatta onna (1953; “The Woman Who Touched the Legs”), a remake of an earlier silent comedy, and Pū-san (1953; “Mr. Pū”). Two of Ichikawa's later features, Biruma no tategoto (1956; The Burmese Harp) and Nobi (1959; Fires on the Plain), are strong antiwar statements. Of the films that followed, Kagi (1959; Odd Obsession), Bonchi (1960); Kuroi jūnin no onna (1961; “Ten Dark Women”), Yukinojō henge (1963; “The Revenge of Yukinojō”), and Matatabi (1973; “The Wanderers”) are notable for Ichikawa's delicate treatment of the material and the strikingly beautiful visual composition of each scene.

      One of his greatest achievements was the documentary Tōkyō Orimpikku (1965; Tokyo Olympiad), in which he emphasized the attitudes and responses of the spectators and competitors over the outcome of the events. His later work included a serialization of The Tale of Genji and a number of popular suspense melodramas.

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