Jiro Sugita

Somai Shinji

  • Name: Somai Shinji
  • Native name: 相米 慎二
  • Also Known as: Sōmai Shinji
  • Nationality: Japanese
  • Gender: Male
  • Born: January 13, 1948
  • Died: September 9, 2001
Shinji Somai was a Japanese film director. He directed 13 films between 1980 and 2000.

Somai was born in Morioka, Iwate Prefecture, and was brought up in Hokkaido. He began his career in 1975 as an assistant director with Nikkatsu Co., one of Japan's leading film production companies, after he dropped out of Chuo University. Somai made his debut as a director in 1980 with The Terrible Couple - an adaptation of a popular boys' manga of the time. The film deals with the trials and tribulations of adolescence, presaging a long thread of Somai works in which young people are called upon to test their capabilities while discovering the unreliable nature of adult society. In Somai's hands, children and teenagers are always treated and presented sympathetically and seriously. An actor's director from the start, Somai's trademark was the use of long takes, usually involving constantly moving and spectacularly sweeping shots, which he felt allowed his cast to achieve the proper mood for scenes which would have been ruined by excessively quick editing. Perhaps the most extraordinary use of this technique is to be found in his 1985 film Lost Chapter of Snow: Passion (one of three of his films released that year), in which Somai uses an apparently single fourteen-minute take to reveal a succession of significant events in one character's childhood. The best of Somai's films often straddle genres, taking off in unpredictable directions toward stimulating destinations.

He died of lung cancer at the age of fifty-three.

(Source: Trakt.tv; edited by kisskh) Edit Biography
Director
Year Title Type Rating
2000 Kaza Hana
Movie
7.0
1998 Wait and See
Movie
6.6
1994 The Friends
Movie
7.7
1993 Moving
Movie
7.9
1990 Tokyo Heaven
Movie
6.4
1987 Luminous Woman
Movie
7.1
1985 Lost Chapter of Snow: Passion
Movie
7.1
1985 Typhoon Club
Movie
7.1
1985 Love Hotel
Movie
6.7
1983 The Catch
Movie
6.5
1983 P.P. Rider
Movie
7.4
1981 Sailor Suit and Machine Gun
Movie
6.6
1980 The Terrible Couple
Movie
6.6
Assistant Director
Year Title Type Rating
1979 The Man Who Stole the Sun
Movie
7.7
1979 Almost Transparent Blue
Movie
0.0
1979 Grass Labyrinth
Movie
7.3
1976 The Youth Killer
Movie
6.2
1976 Campus Erotica: Urete Hiraku
Movie
0.0
1975 Hostess Confidential: Three Juicy Sisters
Movie
0.0
1975 100 High School Girls: Secret Motel Report
Movie
0.0
1975 Lesbian World: Fondling
Movie
0.0
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Somai Shinji

Jiro Sugita
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Details

  • First Name: Jiro
  • Family Name: Sugita
  • Native name: 相米 慎二
  • Also Known as: Sōmai Shinji
  • Nationality: Japanese
  • Gender: Male
  • Born: January 13, 1948
  • Died: September 9, 2001

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