As Japanese films in general were unable to achieve the commercial success of Hollywood blockbusters in the 1980s and 1990s, the industry now started to focus on producing small-budget yakuza (gangster), samurai and animation films, designed only to be distributed on video. The scale and quality of such films compelled the domestic audience to regard Japanese films negatively, as inferior to western films: in other words, they were not worth paying to watch on the silver screen. Original-Video films (OV, later known as V-Cinema) were looked down on by critics and the industry as second class productions, but they actually afforded creative freedom to filmmakers in the same way that ‘Pink Film’ did.

By the mid 1980s OV films had become a major part of film production. One of the most credible V-cinema film makers from the 1990s was Takashi Miike (b 1960), who is now regarded by Hollywood as one of the foremost filmmakers along with John Woo. Miike’s films are full of action and violence, as seen in Dead or Alive (1999) and Audition (1999), however, he sensibly touches on minority issues (for instance, in Nihon kuroshakai ('Ley Lines', 1999) and his films are not mere over-the-top entertainment.

As mentioned above, major film studios produced mainly OV films during this period in order to sustain themselves financially. Shochiku relied heavily on the popularity of Torasan and other comedy series, Toho and Daiei re-produced Godzilla and/or other monster films, and Toei produced animated features for children. Nikkatsu did not succeed in bringing ‘adult’ video audiences back to erotic cinema.

However, from another point of view video film actually opened the door for prospective filmmakers to become directors sooner, without being apprenticed to established directors. Such film makers were able to evade the ‘ordinary’ path of entering a studio and being trained to become a director after serving as an assistant for several years, as Kurosawa and Ozu did years before.

‘Pink Film’ had offered a ‘training period’ to young creators such as Kiyoshi Kurosawa (b 1955), who attained international fame with Kairo ('Pulse', 2001), and Masayuki Suo (b 1956), director of Shall We Dance? (1996). Some trained to be independent filmmakers by themselves: a good example is Shinya Tsukamoto (1960-), director of Tetsuo (1989).

Another important director of this period was Takeshi Kitano, who made a sensational debut in 1989 with Sono otoko, kyobo ni tsuki ('Violent Cop'). Kitano was far better known in his home country as comedian ‘Beat Takeshi’, indeed he had worked as an actor in several films before he entered the side of mise-en-scène. Unfortunately his films such as Sonatine (1993) were considered too violent and depressing by the home audience who expected his work to be similar in style to that of ‘Comedian Takeshi’. As a film director Kitano initially struggled to gain commercial success, despite the critical acclaim and cult popularity he enjoyed abroad. However, after he won the Lion d’Or award for HANA-BI at the 1997 Venice Film Festival, Kitano’s films were ‘re-imported’ to Japan for a domestic audience who began to recognise Kitano’s unique artistic skills.

‘Japanimation’ or animated features were another important phenomenon of this era.

Hayao Miyazaki (b 1941) attained international fame with Princess Mononoke (1997) and Spirited Away (2001), but he had been the most favoured animation creator in Japan for more than a decade since his second feature-length movie (considered his ‘first’ film in term of its originality) Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa, aka Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds (1984). While presenting complex narratives with high-quality visuals and conveying ecological issues, Miyazaki’s animation made Japanese adult audience realise that animation is not aimed exclusively at a young audience. Akira (1988) by Katsuhiro Ohtomo (b 1954) and Ghost in the Shell (1995) by Mamoru Oshii (b 1951), both sci-fi animation films with dystopian settings posing philosophical questions of self-identity, served as animation for adults and promoted an international reputation for the quality of Japanese animation.

To summarise, during the past 20 years the Japanese film industry has learnt to embrace the diversity of new filmmakers’ backgrounds, from porn filmmakers, independent filmmakers and video-film makers to comedians and actors. As a result, they brought inspirational development into filmmaking. It is now said that the period from the late 1990s to date is the third Golden Age of Japanese cinema, as many films are once more being screened at international film festivals, enjoying critical and popular acclaim. The recent commercial success of Japanese films in the domestic market, such as the popular TV series spin-off Bayside Shakedown 2 (Katsuyuki Motohiro, 2003), the new-style jidaigeki with a touch of Tora-san humanism Twilight Samurai (Yoji Yamada, 2002), and the manga-based Nana (Kentaro Ohtani, 2005), as well as animations by Hayao Miyazaki, have brought audiences back to the cinema, and they now come to watch Japanese films rather than foreign films. Indeed, in the early 21st century Japanese films are enjoying greater box-office success than Hollywood blockbusters in Japan.

Today's Japanese audience no longer believes that Japanese films are only to be watched at home on the small screen. Let’s hope that this Golden Age will endure!