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Biography of Tadashi ImaiName: Tadashi ImaiBirth Date: January 8, 1912 Death Date: November 22, 1991 Place of Birth: Toyko, Japan Nationality: Japanese Gender: Male Occupations: film director, screenwriter Tadashi Imai Tadashi Imai (1912-1991) was one of Japan's most prolific and controversial 20th-century film directors. He infused his staunch left-wing political views into almost all his films, sometimes succeeding in combining masterful art with social criticism, but at other times crafting didactic films that succeeded only as propaganda.The son of a priest, Tadashi Imai was born in Tokyo in 1912. He rebelled against authority from a young age, showing a disdain for traditional religion, culture, and social structure. During the time Imai was a teen, dissent from the official ideology was considered a capital crime in Japan, so the young man's political views were highly dangerous. At the Imperial University in Tokyo in the early 1930s, Imai became heavily involved in leftist political causes. Although arrested twice for his role in protests, he was released both times.In 1934 Imai began writing screenplays as a vehicle for expressing his strong political beliefs, and …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…and Youth"). In a prologue, a contemporary Japanese schoolgirl (played by actress Yuki Kudo) tries to discover facts about the war from her father, whose memories are too painful for him to share. Then she learns about her mute aunt's dead child, who was lost during the Allied firebombing of Tokyo in 1945. The film then shifts to tell the story of the aunt (also played by Kudo), and how she loses her husband and child in the chaos of the air raids. Imai used donations from air raid survivors to underwrite the film so he could make and distribute it without the control of major studios, thus capping his career with a thought-provoking, powerful film made completely independently. A few months after its international release, Imai died in Toyko. Further Reading "Tadashi Imai," All-Movie Guide, http://www.allmovie.com/ (February 23, 2002). "Tadashi Imai," Internet Movie Database, http://us.imdb.com/ (February 23, 2002). |