16 Facts About Tatsumi Kumashiro

Tatsumi Kumashiro was a Japanese film director and screenwriter known for his critically acclaimed, award-winning Roman Porno films.

Tatsumi Kumashiro's father was a pharmaceuticals merchant and judo master descended from the samurai class.

Early in life Tatsumi Kumashiro rebelled against this upbringing by immersing himself in film and Western literature.

Tatsumi Kumashiro studied English literature at Waseda University, but, deciding he could not make a living writing novels, entered Shochiku studio as an assistant director in 1952, and moved to Nikkatsu in 1955.

Tatsumi Kumashiro worked as an assistant director and screenwriter until he was finally given a chance to direct in 1968.

The film was a critical success, but because it failed at the box-office Nikkatsu put Tatsumi Kumashiro's directing career on hold again.

Jasper Sharp writes that Tatsumi Kumashiro uses de Sade's story as a platform for criticizing morality imposed by power, with particular relevance to the censorship trial Nikkatsu was undergoing at the time with the prosecution of Love Hunter.

Lovers Are Wet and The World of Geisha were two more films in which Tatsumi Kumashiro similarly used the censor's tools to make an anti-censorship statement.

Tatsumi Kumashiro took breaks from the Roman Porno genre to direct mainstream films, beginning with Bitterness of Youth, a story of student radicalism with similarities to Dreiser's An American Tragedy.

Jasper Sharp notes with surprise that Tatsumi Kumashiro, who had long been an opponent of Japanese censorship, did not take advantage of the more liberal European laws.

Tatsumi Kumashiro suffered from a collapsed lung in 1983, but, in spite of his poor health, he continued making films until his death.

Tatsumi Kumashiro directed his last two films, Like a Rolling Stone and Immoral: Indecent Relations while using an oxygen tank.

Tatsumi Kumashiro died of heart and lung failure on February 24,1995.

Tatsumi Kumashiro is remembered with affection by those who worked with him, and is considered one of the best directors to have worked in the Roman Porno series.

Tatsumi Kumashiro was a little poet, but he was unique.

Tatsumi Kumashiro devoted himself to his works as a true artist.