Ishiro Honda's Other Works

[Camdigidy]

During my last semester of college, I took a film director's class. We studied Hitchcock, then the Coen brothers. Watching a director's work together can give you an amazing insight into that director. I also took a film genre class where I wrote a research paper on kaiju films. Most of my exemplar films were those of Honda.

I'm sure I'm not alone in choosing Honda as my favorite director. There are still a few of his sci-fi movies I have yet to see. But I would really love see his dramatic, non-scifi movies.

Would anyone know of any sources online where I could find his other works? If I can even get my hands on a Japanese copy, I'd be very interested in finding a translator.

[goji1986]

Number one, I would highly recommend getting the recent authorized Ishiro Honda biography by Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski if you haven't already. They were able to procure all but one or two of Honda's films and describe them in great detail with help from his surviving family.

I encourage the book because they make it very clear that outside of his sci-fi pictures, most of his work is not available on home media - even in Japan! They had to hunt for bootlegs and surviving collectors' prints. So, you are unfortunately not going to have much luck on that front.

His co-directing work with Kurosawa -- Kagemusha, Ran, Rhapsody in August, and Dreams -- is pretty accessible (most of them are available on The Criterion Collection). The only other dramatic works that I am aware of being made available on DVD in Japan are Farewell Rabaul and Eagle of the Pacific. Otherwise that's it.

[Camdigidy]

Man. That sucks. I think I found those two on CDJapan. I feel Honda's become a little more recognized since the biography and the release of his other Kaiju movies on Criterion. Maybe that will encourage dvd publishers to translate them and release them.