Early career Born in 1929, Nishihara worked as a professional boxer during the early post-
World War II years. His success in this capacity led to his entry to the film industry as an actor, playing the role of a fighter in director Kōzō Saeki's
1947 Daiei film,
Town Of The Iron Fist or
Street of Iron Fists (
Tekken No Machi). Nishihara served as Saeki's assistant director in the 1949 film, . but the film became a huge box-office success. Even with the limited distribution it received as an independent production,
Flesh Market, which was made for 6-8 million
yen, took in over 100 million yen. With the success of this movie, the pink film genre—known as eroductions at the time—had been born. In the pink-boom atmosphere of the mid-1960s, many small studios were set up to produce these cheap and profitable softcore pornographic theatrical films. One such studio was Aoi Eiga, founded by Nishihara to produce his own films.
Weeping Affair (March 1967) was a melodrama about Katori's relationship with a middle-aged man and his daughter.
Indecent Relationship (May 1967) had Katori as a girl who is financially supporting her boyfriend by working at a
hostess bar. When she finds out that the woman who owns the bar and her boyfriend are having an affair, she seeks revenge on them both. The Weissers judge this early work, "More back-alley junk from sleaze-meister Giichi Nishihara." According to the
Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films, the main difference between
Seduction of the Flesh (July 1967) and Nishihara's other "cinematic excesses" is that Katori is raped not once, but twice within the film's 72-minute duration. The story had Katori suffering these assaults while her husband is away, and then committing suicide in shame.
Pink Telephone (August 1967) was an atypical venture into comedy for Nishihara and Tamaki. The story concerns a man whose goal is to become Japan's number-one drunk.
Abnormal Reaction: Ecstasy (November 1967), was an erotic thriller in which Katori co-starred as the mistress of a man who has faked his death. When the "widow" discovers that her husband is not actually dead, she gets her revenge by arranging to have both her husband and Katori impaled on stakes while in bed.
Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films calls this a "somewhat restrained early project" for the director, adding, "[t]he violence is fleeting. Even the sex scenes are stilted when compared to Nishihara's later efforts."
Ripped Virgin (
1968) had Katori as a high school girl who discovers that the man who raped her is actually her boyfriend. The Weissers judge this film "surprisingly refined" considering that Nishihara is the director. Exploiting the exotic appeal of a white actresses, Nishihara co-starred Katori with two foreign actresses in Aoi Eiga's
Staircase of Sex (1968).
1970s Nishihara's main actress, Tamaki Katori, left Aoi Eiga studios in the later 1960s, and then retired in 1972. In the later half of the decade Nishihara and Izumi began making films for the major
pink film studio
Shintōhō Eiga. Nishihara's films for this studio include such titles as
Please Rape Me Once More (starring Izumi) and
Grotesque Perverted Slaughter (both
1976). About the latter film, the Weissers, in their
Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films report, "This is probably director Nishihara's best film, but that's like choosing from
rat-bite fever, jungle rot, or tick-borne typhus. They're all pretty bad." Robert Firsching of
Allmovie agrees with the Weisser's assessment, calling the film "Nishihara's most skillful film, as he concentrates on characterization and suspense far more here than in his usual sick rapefests." His films of this period are noted for their "twisted plots delivered in an unnerving matter-of-fact style." A typical plot of one of Nishihara's "staggering sleaze-fests" Nishihara retired from the film industry in
1985. In 2002 he published , his memoirs which recounted his eventful life and encounters with criminals. Summarizing Nishihara's career, Allmovie writes, "No one ever accused Nishihara of being the most subtle filmmaker in the world, but at least he manages to keep the tawdry proceedings lively." ==Partial filmography==