Suo, Masayuki

▪ 1998

      Japanese film director Masayuki Suo made his professional debut in the U.S. in 1997 with the highly successful comedy Shall We Dansu? (Shall We Dance?). The movie, about a disillusioned middle-aged businessman who finds escape from his tedious routine by surreptitiously taking ballroom dancing classes at night, was a box-office hit in Japan in 1996 and gave a much-needed shot in the arm to the Japanese motion picture industry, which had been in the doldrums for decades. A favourite with audiences at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, Shall We Dance? also succeeded in dispelling some of the prejudice that Japanese people held against ballroom dancing, which, as a voice-over in the film explained, "is considered shameful in a country where married people never embrace or say 'I love you.'"

      Suo was born on Oct. 29, 1956, in Tokyo. After graduating from Tokyo's Rikkyo (St. Paul's) University, he established a movie-production company, Unit 5, in 1982 and served as an assistant director of 60 mosaically blurred X-rated films. He made his directorial debut in 1983 with the soft-porn movie Hentai kazoku: Aniki no yomesan ("Abnormal Family: My Brother's Wife"). In 1989 Suo advanced into the field of mainstream cinema with Fanshii dansu ("Fancy Dance"). Based on a comic book, Fanshii dansu told the story of a musician in a big city band who learns he must succeed his father as a Buddhist priest and encounters joy and sorrow in undergoing training at a Zen temple.

      One of the major influences on Suo was the late Japanese film director Yasujiro Ozu, whose works drew international acclaim. Suo emulated Ozu's style through the use of such techniques as setting cameras at ground level and giving actors and actresses long pauses in conversation. In the 1990s Suo concentrated his energy and efforts on providing film lovers with entertaining movies showing persons or subject matters that were not very well known in society. A surprise hit at the Cannes Film Festival in 1993 was Shiko Funjatta ("Sumo Do, Sumo Don't"), which Suo wrote and directed. An amusing tale about a young man forced to play on his university's lamentably bad sumo wrestling team, Shiko funjatta won the Japanese Academy Award for best film in 1992.

      Tamiyo Kusakari, the leading lady of Shall We Dance?, soon became Suo's leading lady offscreen as well. The foremost prima ballerina in Japan, Kusakari won rave reviews as the dance instructor whose grace and beauty entrance the film's hero. Soon after Shall We Dance? was released, Suo and Kusakari celebrated by tying the knot. In 1997 the newlyweds toured cities across the U.S. to promote the movie.

TEIJI SHIMIZU

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