1. Teruo Ishii directed the 1965 film Abashiri Prison, which helped to make Ken Takakura a major star in Japan.
15 Facts About Teruo Ishii
1. 2.
Teruo Ishii worked at Toho Studios as an assistant director beginning in 1942.
3.
In March, 1947 Teruo Ishii joined the newly founded Shintoho studios.
4.
Teruo Ishii worked for director Hiroshi Shimizu and studied script writing with Shinichi Sekizawa, best known in the West for his entries in the Godzilla series.
5.
Teruo Ishii was next assigned to direct six installments in the children's science-fiction series, Super Giant.
6.
From 1958 to 1961 Teruo Ishii directed four films in the film-noir Line series.
7.
Shintoho declared bankruptcy in 1961, forcing Teruo Ishii to seek employment at another studio.
8.
Teruo Ishii moved to Toei Company where he directed Flower and Storm and Gang, starring Ken Takakura.
9.
Teruo Ishii would go on to direct 10 of the 18 films in this series.
10.
In 1968, Teruo Ishii initiated two popular, long-running series for Toei.
11.
Teruo Ishii worked in several of Toei's popular genres during the 1970s, including a Pinky violent film with Reiko Ike, Female Yakuza Tale: Inquisition and Torture, and one of Sonny Chiba's films in the mid-1970s, The Executioner.
12.
Teruo Ishii returned to Toei in 1991 with the V-cinema film The Hit Man: Blood Smells Like Roses.
13.
Largely unknown outside Japan during much of his career, late in life, Teruo Ishii's work was discovered and gained admirers in the West.
14.
Teruo Ishii attended festivals devoted to his films given at the Far East Film Festival in Udine and at the Etrange Festival in France.
15.
Teruo Ishii died August 12,2005, before that project ever became a reality.