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Shūji Terayama

Shūji Terayama

Shūji Terayama (December 10, 1935 – May 4, 1983) was an avant-garde Japanese poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. According to many critics and supporters, he was one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan. He was born December 10, 1935, the only son of Hachiro and Hatsu Terayama in Hirosaki city in the northern Japanese prefecture of Aomori. His father died at the end of Pacific War in Indonesia in September 1945. At the age of nine, his mother moved to Kyūshū to work at an American military base while he himself went to live with relatives in the city of Misawa, also in Aomori. At this same time, Terayama lived through the Aomori air raids that killed more than 30,000 people.

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Movies Made By Shūji Terayama (47)

Wilderness: Part 2 (2017)

Set in the near future around Shinjuku, Tokyo. Shinji got out from a youth detention center. Barikan suffers from stuttering and extreme shyness. These two men meet in a boxing gym. Shinji and Barikan become friends and pursue boxing under a hopeless situ ...

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Wilderness: Part 1 (2017)

Set in the near future around Shinjuku, Tokyo. Shinji got out from a youth detention center. Barikan suffers from stuttering and extreme shyness. These two men meet in a boxing gym. Shinji and Barikan become friends and pursue boxing under a hopeless situ ...

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Lemming (2013)

Yukichi Matsumoto's 2013 stage adaptation of Shuji Terayama's "Lemmings". Two cooks share a room, one of which talks with his mother's head: it lives beneath their tatami mats. On the other side of their room's wall, lives a wife who desperately cares for ...

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On the Far Side of Twilight (1994)

He pulls out a pair of scissors that tends toward the sky. So begins his journey through time, space and memory. Seasons change, years pass. Wrapped in a mysterious box of sunset, the boy grows older, becomes adolescent, young man, adult, old, but - strang ...

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The Experimental Image World of Shuji Terayama (1993)

This four-volume boxset released by Image Forum compiles the breadth of Shuji Terayama's experimental short film work into an extensive DVD collection. Originally released by Image Forum on VHS in 1995, this upgraded DVD boxset stands as the definitive col ...

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Farewell to the Ark (1984)

A surreal, isolated village sees its inhabitants gradually leave behind their mutual traditions and superstitions as they leave for the city. Among them are two cousins who love each other and who get into a quarrel with other villagers. ...

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Our Age Comes Riding on a Circus Elephant (1984)

Lacking a coherent plot, We're All Riding on a Circus Elephant depicts the collapse of western civilization as a free-form collage advocating group anarchy and actor improvisation. The stage is a boxing ring. Those actors who are "onstage" get into the box ...

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Video Letter (1983)

This remarkable compilation follows an exchange of video letters that took place between Shuji Terayama and Shuntaro Tanikawa in the months immediately preceding Terayama's death. It can be thought of as a home video produced by two preeminent poets and in ...

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La Marie-vison (1983)

"La Marie-Vison" tells the perversely fascinating tale of Marie, a transvestite prostitute who lives in elegant squalor with her dedicated servant. Every day, for eighteen years, Marie releases an exotic butterfly into the open fields of the living room. E ...

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The Hunchback of Aomori (1983)

This is Shuji Terayama memorial performance of The Hunchback of Aomori from 1983 (featuring Akihiro Miwa). Terayama gathered dwarfs, circus freaks, itinerant magicians, acrobats and untrained youth for his burgeoning troupe, Tenjo Sajiki. The troupe's pre ...

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The Lemmings (1983)

This second version of the play follows Wan and Tsu, two apprentice cooks who, as they eavesdrop on their neighbors one day, are shocked by the sudden disappearance of a wall separating them from the next flat. As they try to understand what happened and h ...

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Fruits of Passion (1981)

A girl named O loves a rich, and much older man. She is subjected to a variety of humiliating experiences to prove her unconditional obedience to him in a Chinese brothel. A poor boy sees her and falls in love with her. To get the money needed to sleep wit ...

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100 Years of Solitude (1981)

This sumptuous-yet-austere liberal re-working of Cien años de soledad by Gabriel García Márquez, arranged on a five-part stage surrounded by the audience, was historically the latest production of Tenjo Sajiki. ...

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A Tale of Africa (1980)

A pilot crash-lands in the African wilds, and loses his memory. He finds an old man living in the jungle with his grand-daughter. He falls in love with the young girl and settles down happily with them; their idyllic life broken only by a visit from his lo ...

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Grass Labyrinth (1979)

Akira is haunted by a "bouncing ball" song that he remembers his mother singing when he was a small child, and now on the verge of a sexually active adulthood, he wants to find the origins of the song. The young man ostensibly wanders into a time-warp in w ...

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Private Collections (1979)

Three stories. A solitary sailor falls from his boat and washes ashore on a tropical island. While seeking rescue, he's found by a nearly naked woman who is playful and compliant. He decides to erase his signs of distress and remain on the island. What awa ...

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Third Base (1978)

Third is an aimless young man who hangs around with a couple of girls who are amateur hookers. One day, while acting as their pimp, he gets into a conflict with a young gangster and winds up killing him. ...

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Les chants de Maldoror (1978)

A "reading film" of delirious image and text, Les chants de Maldoror takes its title and inspiration from Comte de Lautréamont's 1869 proto-Surrealist poetic novel which, for instance, describes beauty as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an um ...

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An Attempt to Describe the Measure of a Man (1978)

Using bluescreen video techniques, Terayama playfully—and with a silent film theatricality—posits a series of postmodern vignettes featuring realities-within-realities as his protagonist attempts some kind of relationship with a nude woman on the scree ...

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Directions to Servants (1978)

A man claiming to be the heir of an estate in northern japan finds himself at the doors of his mansion, only to find it overrun by servants and maids playing pretend as master or mistress, while the real master is nowhere to be found. As he makes his way d ...

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Shintokumaru (1978)

Shuji Terayama and J.A.Seazer's phantasmagoric folk-psych-symph-prog-rock opera. Historical Tenjo Sajiki performance from 1978. ...

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The Reading Machine (1977)

In this Borgesian satire on knowledge and technology, bibliophilic desire leads to the construction of a pedal-powered reading machine. Resembling a combination of gymnastic contraption, printing press and early cinematic apparatus, the machine's purpose r ...

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Boxer (1977)

In the midst of a match, Hayato, a successful boxer, has had enough of the sport. He lets himself get knocked out, and quits boxing, leaving his wife and living alone with his mangy dog. One day a young mediocre boxer knocks at the door and wants to be Ha ...

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The Eraser (1977)

Visions of characters by the seaside from one's memory are erased by the filmmaker's hand. ...

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The Woman with Two Heads (1977)

As a family goes on with their day, the shadows on their walls lead a completely different life. ...

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Father (1977)

A naval officer makes love to his wife while his son, the director of the film, watches them. ...

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Smallpox Tale (1976)

The smallpox virus has created its own unique atmosphere in Terayama's film where the skin of a bandaged adolescent and the surface of the filmic image are subjected to a bizarre 'disturbance' as snails cross the screen and nails are hammered into the skul ...

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The Trial (1975)

An experimental short featuring people and nails. ...

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Labyrinth Tale (1975)

Experimental short film about two men carrying a door. ...

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Pastoral: To Die in the Country (1974)

A director faces creative block while working on his latest film – a reimagination of his adolescence growing up in a mountain village in rural Japan. ...

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Butterfly (1974)

A dreamlike portrayal of a hangover after a decadent party. ...

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Young Person's Guide to Cinema (1974)

Originally made for the 100 Feet Film Festival hosted by Image Forum. However, to test the limits, Terayama Shūji willfully made use of 3 projectors to project 300 feet of film at the same time. ...

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Laura (1974)

Three showgirls playfully mock the audience for attending a projection of an art film. ...

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JRA CM (1973)

Shûji Terayama's commercial for the Japanese Racing Association. ...

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Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (1971)

An experimental, psychedelic odyssey through Japanese subculture experienced via the eyes of a disillusioned young man, who must contend with intense familial dysfunction, psychosexual alienation, and existentialist malaise. ...

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Emperor Tomato Ketchup (1971)

In a Japanese colony, children overthrow their parental guardians and attempt to form a new society. Their plan spirals out of control and they are soon lost in a web of sexual deviation and violence. ...

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The War of Jan-Ken-Pon (1971)

Paper-Scissor-Rock wars draws an episode where the two generals portray the Second World War, mostly through the rock-scissors-bag, but also by some absurd torture techniques that bring to mind some sort of Japanese artificial 70s jack ass. To the sound of ...

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The Scandalous Adventures of Buraikan (1970)

An outlaw pushes the residents of Edo's red light district to rebel against a growing number of stifling, moralistic laws. ...

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Nanami: The Inferno of First Love (1968)

A teenage goldsmith with a dark past tragically falls in love with a young nude model. ...

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Mothers (1967)

Documentary about the relationships between mothers and their children. ...

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The Cage (1964)

An experimental fantasy short dedicated to questioning whether or not man is a prisoner of time. ...

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A Flame at the Pier (1962)

A young dockworker who owes his life to his boss becomes embroiled in union activity on the Yokohama waterfront. The rebel Saburo works as an errand boy for a shipping company and vents his frustrations by plucking on the guitar. ...

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Epitaph to My Love (1961)

Ishihara Kiyoshi plans to marry the woman he loves, Chiee, a coffee shop girl. After an accident, Chiee loses her memory. A romance movie whose original work by Ayako Sono was made into a melodrama by a combination of Shinoda Masahiro and Terayama Shuji. ...

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Killers on Parade (1961)

A vengeful contractor hires a series of young killers to target a woman muckraker. Trouble brews when an amateur marksman shows up his eclectic competition. ...

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Get 'em All (1960)

Gang of robbers quarrel about the loot, but when one of them gets killed, his younger brother seeks them out to ice them one by one. ...

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Youth in Fury (1960)

Young people are caught up in the political revolt that culminates in student riots against the 1960 Japanese-American mutual security treaty. Nihilist Takuya, politically engaged but also confused––he decorates his walls with pictures of political fig ...

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Movies Starring Shūji Terayama (7)

Where is Tomorrow, Shuji Terayama (2017)

The documentary to find the "true Shuji Terayama". ...

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Video Letter (1983)

This remarkable compilation follows an exchange of video letters that took place between Shuji Terayama and Shuntaro Tanikawa in the months immediately preceding Terayama's death. It can be thought of as a home video produced by two preeminent poets and in ...

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Catalog of Memory (1977)

Shuji Terayama starts a poem, and then ships his pencil to Herbie Yamaguchi in the UK. Herbie ships the pencil back to Terayama, who then finishes his poem. ...

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JRA CM (1973)

Shûji Terayama's commercial for the Japanese Racing Association. ...

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Pretty Devil Yoko (1966)

Easily bored, but still innocent and naive countryside girl discovers partying in Tokyo is a ton of fun. Yakuza-to-be is an acquaintance who tries to rape her, and the typically bland but very-good-here the first boyfriend. ...

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Youth in Fury (1960)

Young people are caught up in the political revolt that culminates in student riots against the 1960 Japanese-American mutual security treaty. Nihilist Takuya, politically engaged but also confused––he decorates his walls with pictures of political fig ...

Watch Now