Kon Ichikawa

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Kon Ichikawa, the Japanese film director whose versatility ranged beyond his well-known antiwar dramas like “The Burmese Harp” and “Fires on the Plain” to comedies, documentaries and literary adaptations, died on Wednesday in Tokyo. He was 92.

Mr. Ichikawa’s career reached what many consider its high point when Americans were streaming to art-cinema houses in the 1950s and ’60s to see movies by emerging masters like Ingmar Bergman. In those years some critics rated Mr. Ichikawa on a level with Akira Kurosawa. He was “once hailed as one of the world’s greatest directors,” Olaf Möller wrote in 2001 in Film Comment.

He was also versatile in his 60-year career, directing hugely profitable thrillers, very black comedies and cartoons.
Read the full article at the NY Times.