Kôji Wakamatsu

The pioneering Kôji Wakamatsu (born Ito Takashi) was a contemporary of Oshima Nagisa and equally controversial, yet not as famous. The man was born in Miyagi Prefecture in the north of Japan before dropping out of agricultural school, some say following a physical altercation, moving to Tokyo at age seventeen, joining the yakuza and landing in prison for a year as a consequence. While with the yakuza he would work for the mob collecting payments on film sets among other thuggery. Upon release and following odd jobs he became an assistant to a film director and eventually make his own pink film erotic feature called Sweet Trap in 1963. Twenty or so films, including several acclaimed ones for Nikkatsu Studio, later he created his own Wakamatsu production where he and crew would push back against norms by shooting softcore pink features, violent movies, left-wing resistance cuts and even internationally bent movies on topics like the oppression of the Palestinian nation and the Japanese u