Sound And Vision: Yoshihiro Nishimura
In the article series Sound and Vision we take a look at music videos from notable directors. This week we discuss two distinct music videos by Yoshihiro Nishimura.
Yoshihiro Nishimura passed away a few weeks ago, at age 59. The director of films like Tokyo Gore Police, Meatball Machine Kudoku, Mutant Girl Squad, Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl and Hell Driver was also known as a special effects wizard. Often dubbed the Tom Savini of Japan, a typical Nishimura joint is full of surreal and irreverent body horror, gory action, slapsticky humor, and a lot of objectified women in scantily clad attire.
Nishimura made two music videos that divide the elements he is most known for between the two. The 50 Kaitenz's Killer (see below) has Nishimura's knack for turning the human body into a literal object, merging man and machine to such an extent, one is not sure where one ends and one begins. In films like Meatball Machine Koduku and Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl, human body parts get turned into vehicles that are driven by other characters, or weapons and humans merge into something uncanny and unkillable. The same is happening in this music video, where body parts are weapons, and vice versa, having even a machine gun dick show up somewhere mid-video. The curious thing is the affair isn't all that gory, replacing red blood with yellow petals and liquid, that tap into a sunflower theme running throughout the video.
Much gorier, but much less imaginative is Nishimura's music video for Ena Fujita's Ienai Koto wa Uta no Naka (also below). The gore comes mostly in scenes where Ena Fujita starts bleeding from all over her body, while wearing a bikini with a nationalistic militaristic design. Elsewhere, the nationalistic theme in costuming shows up with Ena Fujita wearing the Japanese flag as make-up, while wielding a samurai sword and getting involved in some brass knuckle action. It is a rather sedate affair, for Nishimura's standards, so it is surprising it was branded too hot for tv, only being shown in censored versions initially. It is extra surprising this is the one he turned into a full feature film.
In what is a rare occasion in Sound and Vision-land, this is the reverse of having a tie-in music video, in which a clip is used to promote a film. Here the music video came first, and was expanded to a feature length film. Welcome to Japan: Hinomaru Lunch Box, the film in question, also stars Fujita, and expands on the nationalistic theme of the music video in a tongue in cheek way. Outside of the action scenes one of the main throughlines of the movie is a lunch box being prepared, while an adult performer ostensibly advertising for Japan, comments on the ingredients of the lunch box by showing off her body in increasingly risque and outré ways. Part adult film, part action film, but mostly tongue in cheek parody on the Japanese tourism industry, Welcome to Japan: Hinomaru Lunch Box is slight, and very much non-essential Nishimura. But it is a fun expansion on the themes of the music video, although The 50 Kaitzen's Killer might have at first glance been a more natural fit for a feature length treatment.
