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Kinji Fukasaku (深作 欣二, Fukasaku Kinji, 3 July 1930 – 12 January 2003) was a Japanese film actor, screenwriter, and best known as a celebrated and innovative filmmaker. He was born in Mito, Ibaraki, Japan, and died in Tokyo, from prostate cancer. He is best known in the west for directing the Japanese portion of the Hollywood film Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) and Battle Royale (2000). When he was 15 years old, Fukasaku's class was drafted, and he worked as a munitions worker during World War II. In July 1945, the class was caught in artillery fire. Since the children could not escape... MORE

Kinji Fukasaku (深作 欣二, Fukasaku Kinji, 3 July 1930 – 12 January 2003) was a Japanese film actor, screenwriter, and best known as a celebrated and innovative filmmaker. He was born in Mito, Ibaraki, Japan, and died in Tokyo, from prostate cancer. He is best known in the west for directing the Japanese portion of the Hollywood film Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) and Battle Royale (2000). When he was 15 years old, Fukasaku's class was drafted, and he worked as a munitions worker during World War II. In July 1945, the class was caught in artillery fire. Since the children could not escape artillery fire, they had to dive under each other in order to survive. The surviving members of the class had to dispose of the corpses. Fukasaku realized that the Japanese government lied about World War II at that point; Fukasaku had a burning hatred of adults in general for a long time. In 1973, Fukasaku directed a groundbreaking yakuza film, Battles Without Honor and Humanity (released in the United States as The Yakuza Papers). Up to this point, Japan's many yakuza films had usually been tales of chivalry (ninkyo) set in the pre-war period, but Fukasaku's ultra-violent, documentary-style film took LESS