Hasebe Yasuharu

Other Name: 長谷部安春

Age: 92

Birthday: April 4, 1932

Nationality: Japanese

Gender: Male

Hasebe Yasuharu was a Japanese film director best known for his movies in the "Violent pink" subgenre of the Pink film, such as Assault! Jack the Ripper (1976), Rape! (1976), Rape! 13th Hour (1977) and Raping! (1978). Earlier genre films directed by Hasebe include Black Tight Killers (1966) and the Alleycat Rock series (1970). After studying French literature at Waseda University, he began working at Nikkatsu studios in 1958. For eight years he worked as an assistant director, including a lengthy apprenticeship under Seijun Suzuki. He was given his first chance to direct in 1966 with Black Tight Killers. He directed more action genre films in the 1960s including the fourth film in the Singing Gunman series, starring Kobayashi Akira, and Massacre Gun with Jo Shishido. Hasebe worked mainly in television in the early 1970s, including the series Spectreman. He returned to Nikkatsu to make Naked Seven (1974), a financially and critically successful parody of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, and an informal sequel to the Alleycat Rock series. Also in 1974, he directed an homage to Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry character in Sukeban Deka: Dirty Mary. Though well-regarded today, this film was a major financial failure at the time and damaged Hasebe's reputation for a couple of years. When Nikkatsu offered him a chance to leave TV and create a new genre of pink film in 1976, Hasebe was at first reluctant. Not interested in directing typical sex films, Hasebe instead conceived of the "Violent pink" genre. The Weissers, in their Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films describe the Violent pink" films as "vicious and mean-spirited productions, without delving into the more traditional whip-n-bondage aspects of the S&M genre", and compare the genre to the American "roughies." After leaving Nikkatsu in the late 1970s, Hasebe worked for Toei, where he directed several V-cinema films in the 1990s. When interviewed in 1999, Hasebe was a grandfather, living in a comfortable semi-retirement in Tokyo. Hasebe died of pneumonia on June 14, 2009. (Source: Wikipedia).