Kurosawa Producer Yoichi Matsue Passes Away at 88

Yoichi Matsue (far left) with Akira Kurosawa (next to him) in the Soviet Union for Dersu Uzala.

Frequent Akira Kurosawa collaborator Yoichi Matsue passed away on March 9 of this year in Hachioji, Tokyo, of pneumonia, his family has announced. He was 88.

Mr. Matsue was born on October 26, 1930, in Ishikawa Prefecture. He joined Toho Studios in 1955 as an actor, appearing as one of the convicts in Godzilla Raids Again (1955).

It was behind the camera, however, that Mr. Matsue would achieve his greatest fame working with Akira Kurosawa -- first as an assistant director on such films as Sanjuro (1962), High and Low (1963), and Red Beard (1965), and later as a producer on Dodeskaden (1970) and Dersu Uzala (1975).

When Dersu Uzala won the Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film in 1976, it was Mr. Matsue who gave the acceptance speech, making him the only actor from a Japanese Godzilla film who's delivered an acceptance speech at the Academy Awards. The video is below:

Through our mutual friend, I contacted Mr. Matsue last year about interviewing him, but unfortunately he declined my proposal. 

Rest in peace, Mr. Matsue.

At 99, Kaneto Shindo calls it a day

Director Kaneto Shindo at a press conference during the Tokyo International Film Festival held in Roppongi Hills in October 2010. Source: here.

The director of such Japanese horror classics as Onibaba (1964) and Kuroneko (1968) has made his final film.

Released nationwide in Japan in August 2011, Shindo's Post Card is an antiwar saga that draws on the veteran director's lifetime experiences. According to the Japan Times:

The film hopes to portray "the absurdity of war," he told the audience at the film's premiere at a cinema in Shinjuku, Tokyo, on Aug. 6, the 66th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing. The film also began showing on Aug. 6 in Hiroshima, and on Saturday nationwide. 

The movie "will remain even after I die," Shindo said from his wheelchair, to applause from the audience. 

The film won the Special Jury Prize at the Tokyo International Film Festival in 2010.

Director Shindo was born on April 22, 1912. Beginning his film career in 1934, he would enjoy enormous success as a film director and screenwriter, amassing numerous awards throughout his career.

But the best may be yet to come.

Eiren (the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan) has selected Post Card to be its official entry in the Academy Awards' Best Foreign Language Film category. You can read more about it here.

If Post Card gets nominated, I know which film I'll be rooting for!

To view the trailer (which contains snippets from Shindo's press conference), follow the link below: