Kengo Furusawa

**Kengo Furusawa** (古澤 憲吾, *Furusawa Kengo*, March 30, 1919 - January 16, 1997) is a prolific Japanese film director and movie producer.

## Kengo Furusawa

### Occupation

Director
Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Producer

## Career

Born in Tosu, Saga Prefecture in 1919, Kengo attended classes at the Department of Aesthetics at Nihon University, and soon joined Toho Production in 1943. During the Second World War, he joined the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service as a aerial photographer. In 1944, he worked as an assistant director in "Kato hayabusa sento-tai" (directed by Kajiro Yamamoto) produced by Toho under the supreme order of the Ministry of the Army Hajime Sugiyama as a training propaganda for new recruits. After Japan surrendered to the Allies and the end of the Pacific War in 1945, he was demobilized from the navy and return to the Nihon University as a class tutor. He graduated in 1947. In 1948, Kengo joined Toho's Supervisory Department. After returning to Toho, he served as an assistant director for Kon Ichikawa, Kunio Watanabe, Shue Matsubayashi, Ishirō Honda, Hiroshi Inagaki, Hideo Suzuki and others.

In 1959, he became director and directed his first feature film, Gokigen musume. In 1962, Kengo directed Nippon musekinin jidai, which became a popular classic comedy film and since then, he produced many Crazy Cats films megaphone for entertainment movies such as the Wakadaishō series.

In 1970, Kengo left Toho and was planning to make a blockbuster movie "Storm Over Asia" that depicts the modern history of Japan, but it never happened.

## Background

He was nicknamed "Pare-san" because he called himself "a hero of the Palembang descent operation. However, Furusawa joined the aviation unit after the "Palembang attack," and director Shue Matsubayashi and others have stated that "that is left to us." Although it is not an actual descent operation, Furusawa himself appeared as a parachute member in the reproduction scene of the Palembang descent operation in "Kato hayabusa sento-tai " (Directed by Kajiro Yamamoto in 1944) who participated as an assistant director.

Credit titles in Crazy Cats movies and Wakadaishō series, using special credits that make the name pop out from the back of the screen, using aerial shots and bird's-eye shots a lot, playing "Gunkan March" in the play, etc. Known for his unique style, such as humming a "life theater" to a person.Kengo heard suspicious things such as "Setsuko Hara fell in love with him", or in opposition to Kihachi Okamoto, who always stood out in black, or in a white suit, hat, socks and shoes known as a stranger, such as standing in.

Once, he imitated Toyotomi Kinoshita's story and warmed the actor's footwear in hus pocket, but this actor made him foolish and said, "I thought he was impressed, but that idiot!" It was said that it was. The height of tension during the production was also famous at the studio. The instructions during the shooting were loud and yelling all the time. According to actress Yukiko Kobayashi, this was unusual for Toho's director. Kengo was often injured during filming, and when I he was shooting in a convertible, he sometimes fell off the car after saying "Action!" and couldn't say "Cut!", so he was seen walking with crutches by other staffs. He had a habit of saying, "Turn the camera because anything is fine," and he was the type who proceeded with everything with momentum.

Kengo stated, "If there is no movement on the screen, momentum will not be generated." He is using a lot of techniques to always capture pedestrians behind even in indoor cutscenes, and sometimes preferred short cutscenes. Mie Hama also commented, "There were overwhelmingly more film changes than other directors' films." Even though the film magazine was empty during the film change, he said, "Why are you stopping the camera, turn it because it's okay!" And continued the production without filming. However, Teruyoshi Nakano, special effects director, also commented, "In reality, my personality was delicate, contrary to what I said and did, and I didn't leave it to the flow and momentum of the scene to shoot." At the beginning of "Nihon'ichi no Goma suri otoko", Hitoshi Ueki, who plays the main character of the film, is asked by his father (literally) to sesame, and two kittens are prepared in the bamboo basket next to it, and the audience's loveliness It was said that he had even calculated the part to calm his mind.

Also, when filming the sports game scenes such as "Young Guy at Sea", he put up a newspaper advertisement saying, "If you come to see it, you will listen to Yuzo Kayama's song," and participated as an extra to the large number of Kayama fans who came in. There was also one side of the idea man, such as getting it. In "Crazy Cats Movie", Mie Hama, whose acting theory was broken due to the heavy use of "hollow shooting" without too much context, was seriously worried and questioned, "You don't have to think about anything! According to the news article, Ueki was also worried about this. Ueki later said that when Takuya Fujioka, who participated in Furusawa's work for the first time, came to the shooting site, Furusawa said, "Mr. Fujioka, I am a director who pursues realism." When Fujioka asked Ueki if it was true, Ueki replied, "I wonder if the real we think is so different from the real he thinks." Toru Yuri is his favorite, and he often appeared in comedy stuff such as Crazy Cats film with Akira Hitomi, and was heavily used. There were many combinations with prodution designer Shinobu Muraki, and he always called Muraki "Ms.!"

While directing his war movie "Siege of Fort Bismarck" (1963), he insisted that "special effects are not used because they are not powerful!" Eiji Tsuburaya, the director of special effects, told him to try it without special effects, and he started shooting only with Furusawa, but in the end, Kengo apologized to Tsuburaya. After that, when he saw the result of the special effects, he prostrated, "It's Tsuburaya after all." From the standpoint of disagreeing with the Tokyo Tribunal, he continued to submit plans for "Asia no Arashi," which depicts the modern history of Japan, to Toho, but it was not realized due to Toho's corporate culture, which dislikes political topics. Kengo loved the "red color of the Hinomaru", so I was particular about the color of the title of my movie, and even rushed to the photo lab to make it a convincing "red color of the Hinomaru".

For this reason, at the photo lab, this red color that Furusawa imagined was called "pallet red." It was Furusawa's commitment that the last of Furusawa's works always ended with the title of "Pare Red". In his later years, he changed his name to Masatoshi, and made a living by selling fire extinguishers, managing parking lots, and controlling traffic at construction sites. He was also known for his dislike of the Japanese Communist Party.

Unknowingly, Kengo visited the residence of Satsuo Yamamoto, a master of left-wing movies and politically the enemy of the Toho Dispute, to sell fire extinguishers and returned his heels in a hurry. Director Shue Matsubayashi said of Furusawa, "That was really the right wing."