When it comes to filmmaking auteurs, Shinji Somai is not a name that has always been afforded much attention in Western criticism. But off the back of passionate new appraisals by contemporary filmmakers, a first US-based retrospective of his films in New York in 2023, and a string of UK home media releases in 2024, the Japanese director is now rightly getting his dues overseas – some two decades after his death from lung cancer at the age of just 53.

Somai’s influence has long been acknowledged in his native country. Indeed, some 33 years before Oscar winner Ryusuke Hamaguchi declared that “no Japanese filmmaker makes a film without being conscious of Shinji Somai's existence”, a 1990 critics poll by the prestigious Kinema Junpo magazine had already declared him the best native director of the 80s. It’s easy to understand why: during a widely underwhelming decade for Japanese cinema – in which the major studios flirted with financial combustion as audiences largely stayed at home in front of the TV – his hypnotic arthouse cinema played a crucial role in the rise of independent filmmaking.

His sensitive stories offered a sense of heart that transcended his unconventional style. But it is this style, nonetheless, that makes adolescent coming-of-age tales like Typhoon Club, Moving and The Friends feel so ahead of their time today. Somai’s preference to shoot entire scenes in a single, continuous take (Japanese cinema expert Tom Mes has noted that, across his 13 films, Somai’s average shot length is a lingering 13 seconds) is his most recognisable trait – the anchor to a brand of filmmaking that emphasises both technical mastery and spontaneous acting performances. Indeed, his meticulous and delicate presentation would ultimately inspire such acclaimed talents as Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters), Shunji Iwai (All About Lily Chou-Chou), and Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure) as they rose to prominence in the 90s and 00s.

With some of Somai’s most obscure curiosities – 1985’s Love Hotel and 1987’s Luminous Woman – receiving their first UK releases in recent weeks via Third Window Films, we took the opportunity to look back over the career of one of Japan’s most overlooked filmmakers to highlight five essential works worthy of renewed attention. Check them out below.

TYPHOON CLUB (1985) 

Commonly cited as the director’s masterpiece, Typhoon Club effectively kick-started the revival of Western interest in Somai’s work after a restoration of the film was programmed for the 2023 Berlin Film Festival. One of several Somai films produced by indie filmmaking alliance the Directors Company in the mid-‘80s, it concerns a group of unsupervised schoolchildren who take refuge in a classroom during a tropical storm – and though the intrinsic narrative is light on detail, as a mood piece it is profoundly effective, with the arrival of torrential rainfall marking a coming-of-age metamorphosis for the youngsters after they strip off in the downpour.

The winner of Best Film at the inaugural Tokyo International Film Festival (Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci, who was on the jury, called it “one of the most beautiful and touching teenage films I’ve ever seen”), Typhoon Club was later ranked by Kinema Junpo as the 59th greatest Japanese movie of all time in a 1999 critics poll (by 2009, it had moved up to 12th place). Central to its strengths are Somai’s signature long-takes, designed to capture powerful spontaneity in the young performers in wide shots of classroom chaos. They also inject a palpable tension during the film’s most disturbing scenes – which capture a male student doggedly pursuing a young girl in the corridors.

LOVE HOTEL (1985)

Though released only a few weeks after fellow Directors Company production Typhoon Club, Love Hotel is a considerable thematic departure from the youth-focused dramas that Somai would be best known for throughout his career. It is thus one of the most obvious outliers in his canon. 

This softcore drama – about a debt-ridden man who attempts suicide with a call girl, before later rekindling a relationship with her upon becoming a taxi driver – nods heavily to Somai’s early career as an assistant director in Japan’s thriving sex cinema industry. (Like many emerging filmmakers of the era, Somai cut his teeth working on kinky films like Lesbian World: Fondling and 100 High School Girls: Secret Motel Report due to the limited opportunities available in mainstream filmmaking.) Love Hotel would thus mark a full circle moment when Nikkatsu studio, who owned the ‘Roman Porno’ line, picked up the finished feature for distribution.

Though the extensive sex scenes and adult character focus are atypical of Somai’s works, his recognisable aesthetic is still present – with ponderous long-takes elevating what might otherwise have been an unremarkable titillation vehicle. Unbroken shots of the binding, stripping, and threatening of a sex worker with a knife in the neon-tinted opening are undeniably tense due to the camera’s refusal to look away – but in more sensual scenes, such distanced observation adds a voyeuristic quality that’s undeniably conducive to the format.

LUMINOUS WOMAN (1987) 

Another anomaly of Somai’s usually understated oeuvre is avant garde fairytale Luminous Woman, which tells the story of a boorish countryside dweller Sensaku (real-life pro-wrestler Keiji Muto) who arrives in Tokyo in search of his sweetheart. He quickly ends up growing close to nightclub opera singer Yoshino (acid jazz pioneer Michiru Akiyoshi, who won the 1988 Japanese Academy Award for her performance) – who has lost her ability to sing. 

It’s arguably Somai’s most aesthetically striking work, thanks to a fantasy-like lens filter effect which steeps the entire movie in gorgeous shades of purple. From the Lynchian opening shots of a windy garbage wasteland to images of a violet full moon emerging from clouds over crashing waves – and, especially, the sight of a catastrophic inferno on a bus, which radiates blinding pink fireballs – this experimental work is just stunning to observe, even if the narrative feels over-stretched.

The exquisite set preparation, meanwhile, only adds to the visual brilliance – with gladiator fights in a shady, carnivalesque nightclub recalling surreal, baroque classics like Fellini’s Satyricon. It’s here that Somai also showcases some of the film’s most impressive camerawork – with one floating, unbroken shot zooming from a foregrounded wrestling match to a conversation in an office in the background, in a manner not unlike that of Stanley Kubrick’s technical masterwork Barry Lyndon.

MOVING (1993)

This 1993 Cannes Un Certain Regard nominee – considered by many to be a precursor to the acclaimed work of 2018 Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters) – remains one of Somai’s most beloved films, thanks largely to its radiant child actor lead (Tomoko Tabata) and poignant narrative. The story of a sixth grader forced to navigate her parents’ divorce over the course  of one sweltering summer, its strength lies in young Renko’s stubborn optimism for the restoration of her family despite the apathy of her mother and physical distancing of her father.

While the colourful set design, rich cinematography, and mournful strings score from regular collaborator Shigeaki Saegusa all stand out in Moving, it’s the film’s unexpected shift into a surreal and dreamlike third act that truly elevates the film. After attending a lakeside fireworks festival, Renko is struck by blazing hay bales and a trickling stream on a misty hillside until, eventually, she witnesses a lonely dragon boat emerging from the water in the night. Somai’s work is rife with watery coming-of-age motifs, but the girl’s ensuing vision here is perhaps the most touching denouement of his canon – anchoring the entire film in a place of heart-wrenching melancholy.

KAZA-HANA (UMBRELLA FLOWER) (2000)

In a dreamy opening scene scored by humming synthesisers, a camera floats through the branches of a cherry blossom tree to find two young adults awakening at its roots. Alcoholic civil servant Sawaki, recently suspended from his job, can’t remember a thing from the previous night – but strip bar hostess and call girl Yuriko soon fills him in: the odd couple are embarking on a trip to snowy Hokkaido after making a drunken pact to travel to commit suicide. Hereafter, a sweet and sombre road movie (via a pink rented Jeep) reluctantly unfolds.

Somai’s overlooked final film has received little Western distribution since its release, despite playing at the Berlin Film Festival in 2001. But this quietly affecting mood piece excels through delicate direction and picturesque cinematography, as well as the strength of its two lead performances by now-iconic character actor Tadanobu Asano (Shogun) and former pop star Kyoko Koizumi (Hanging Garden). It also clearly foreshadows the work of contemporary filmmaker and fan Ryusuke Hamaguchi – whose 2022 Oscar winner Drive My Car shares a similar style and premise.