Ichikawa, Kon

▪ 2009

      Japanese motion-picture director

born Nov. 20, 1915, Ise, Japan

died Feb. 13, 2008, Tokyo, Japan

introduced sophisticated Western-style comedy to Japan in the 1950s, but he was better known for Biruma no tategoto (1956; The Burmese Harp) and Nobi (1959; Fires on the Plain), two dramatic antiwar films. Ichikawa made his first motion picture, Musume Dojo-ji (The Girl at Dojo Temple), in 1946 for the Shintoho Motion Picture Co. Sambyaku rokujugo 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 Pu-san (1953; “Mr. Pu”). Kagi (1959; Odd Obsession), Bonchi (1960), Kuroi junin no onna (1961; “Ten Dark Women”), Yukinojo henge (1963; “The Revenge of Yukinojo”), and Matatabi (1973; “The Wanderers”) were 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 Tokyo Orimpikku (1965; Tokyo Olympiad), in which he emphasized the attitudes and responses of the spectators and competitors over the outcome of the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His later work included a serialization of The Tale of Genji and a number of popular suspense melodramas.

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