INTRODUCTION

The arrival of Ken Russell’s films in Japan in the early 1970s impacted greatly on Japanese cinema and film culture and on the lives of younger moviegoers in particular. Women in Love (United Artists, 1969), The Music Lovers (United Artists, 1970) and The Devils (Warner Bros., 1971) heralded the arrival of a major new talent from the UK, whose work (admittedly not to everyone’s taste) fascinated a cult of younger film enthusiasts through its use of a unique and visual film language. Although his films had been ignored by a wider audience accustomed to old-fashioned, more traditional modes of storytelling style at the time (the work of David Lean, for example, another British director who had gained popularity among Japanese moviegoers), the most prominent and significant advocate for Russell’s work was the film critic Yuji Konno, a prominent film and (rock) music critic then emerging out of this new generation of younger Japanese film enthusiasts, and a former culture and fashion magazine editor.

Konno was an enthusiastic supporter and wrote many influential essays on Russell, especially for Kinema Junpo (founded in 1919), Japan’s most established and revered film publication. He labelled Russell a ‘monster of imagination’ in a review of The Music Lovers in 1972. His reviews and talks on TV and radio shows had a strong influence over young filmgoers interested in new and expressive modes of cinema – the free style of Robert Altman, for instance, or the surrealistic visuals of Federico Fellini. Some of these enthusiasts, mostly in their twenties, established the Ken Russell Film Club in 1975, which published booklets dealing with his work and further consolidating Russell’s cult reputation; these and other younger fans would later organise film events, including a significant and successful Ken Russell Retrospective in 1987. Russell therefore found a unique place in the hearts and minds of Japanese film enthusiasts across the 1970s and 1980s, despite never being regarded as a ‘master’ director like Stanley Kubrick.

The aim of this chapter is to consider the influence Ken Russell within the Japanese film industry and offer a short history of how his films were received by fans and critics alike. Russell’s influence and presence in Japanese film culture has, until now, evaded critical examination, and this chapter aims to consider, for the first time, Russell’s influence in a non-Western context.