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Ishii Teruo: King of Cult

The master of Gensenkan inn

Ishii Teruo

Japan1993 98min 35mm Color

Synopsis

Based on Yoshiharu Tsuge's manga, The Master of Gensenken Inn consists of four episodes. Cartoonist Tsube, appearing in all the four, retains a quaint feeling of the story throughout the series. With this film, Ishii came back behind camera after a 14-year hiatus. The Master of Gensenken Inn encompasses esthetic expressions of body and a nihilistic sense of wit in a quiet and closed space.

Diretor

Ishii Teruo

More vital than most men half his age, eighty-year-old Teruo Ishii continues to make films that witness their creator's colourful personality. Still best known for his series of Edo-era torture films from the late 60s, Ishii has worked in a vast range of genres in the course of his six-decade long career. From his early Super Giants films for Shin Toho, through his gang and biker films for Toei and his recent independently made ero-gro spectacles, his work has remained as youthful in spirit as the man who made them. Midnight Eye met up with Ishii at the Étrange Festival in Paris, which paid tribute to the man who is referred to at home as the King of Cult.