Banmei Takahashi

Banmei Takahashi
Takahashi in three-quarter profile at press event wearing black suit and black shirt and glasses
Takahashi in 2022
Born (1949-05-10) May 10, 1949 (age 75)
Nara, Nara, Japan
OccupationFilm director
Years active1975–present
SpouseKeiko Takahashi

Banmei Takahashi (高橋伴明, Takahashi Banmei) (or Tomoaki Takahashi)[1] is a Japanese film director. Takahashi started his career in the pink film industry, making his directorial debut in 1972 with Escaped Rapist Criminal. Due to a disagreement with his producer, Takahashi quit the film industry for a couple years.[2] He joined pink film pioneer Kōji Wakamatsu's production studio in 1975, working as a script-writer until Wakamatsu produced Takahashi's second film, Delinquent File: Juvenile Prostitution (1976). For the next few years Takahashi averaged five films annually at Wakamatsu's studio, until Takahashi left to start his own production company in 1979.[2]

Takahashi married Nikkatsu Roman Porno and pink film actress Keiko Sekine who then changed her name to Keiko Takahashi and starred in several of Takahashi's films.[3] Sekine appeared in Takahashi's Tattoo Ari (1982), a mainstream box-office hit which won Takahashi the award for Best Director at the 4th Yokohama Film Festival.[4][5] With the success of this film, Takahashi dissolved Takahashi Productions to focus on mainstream filmmaking.[2] Takahashi's 1994 film Ai no Shinsekai, inspired by photographer Nobuyoshi Araki's work, is significant as the first Japanese production to play uncensored and unfogged domestically.[6]

  1. ^ Weisser, Thomas; Yuko Mihara Weisser (1998). Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films. Miami: Vital Books : Asian Cult Cinema Publications. pp. 183, 234. ISBN 1-889288-52-7.
  2. ^ a b c Weisser, p. 234.
  3. ^ Weisser, pp. 253, 234.
  4. ^ 第４回ヨコハマ映画祭 １９８２年日本映画個人賞 (in Japanese). Yokohama Film Festival. Retrieved 2010-01-14.
  5. ^ Weisser, p.427.
  6. ^ Weisser, pp. 291-292.