Shinobu Hashimoto (, ''Hashimoto Shinobu''; 18 April 1918 – 19 July 2018) was a Japanese screenwriter, director and producer. A frequent collaborator of

Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker who List of works by Akira Kurosawa, directed 30 feature films in a career spanning six decades. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the History of film, history of cinema ...

, he wrote the scripts for critically acclaimed films such as ''

Rashomon is a 1950 Japanese ''jidaigeki'' film directed by Akira Kurosawa from a screenplay he co-wrote with Shinobu Hashimoto. Starring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyō, Masayuki Mori, and Takashi Shimura, it follows various people who describe how a ...

'' and ''

Seven Samurai is a 1954 Japanese epic samurai action film directed by Akira Kurosawa from a screenplay co-written with Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni. Taking place in 1586 in the Sengoku period of Japanese history, it follows the story of a villag ...

,'' as well as the Samurai films '' Harakiri (1962)'' and '' Hitokiri (''released in the US as ''Tenchu!) (1969)''.

Early life

Shinobu Hashimoto was born in

Hyōgo Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Hyōgo Prefecture has a population of 5,469,762 () and a geographic area of . Hyōgo Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the east, Osaka Prefecture to th ...

on 18 April 1918. In 1938 he enlisted in the

army An army, ground force or land force is an armed force that fights primarily on land. In the broadest sense, it is the land-based military branch, service branch or armed service of a nation or country. It may also include aviation assets by ...

, but became ill with

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

while still training and spent four years in a veterans' sanitarium.

Career

While hospitalized, another patient gave Hashimoto a film magazine. The magazine sparked his interest in screenwriting and he began a screenplay about his army experience, spending three years on the project. Hashimoto was a frequent collaborator with

, from 1950 to 1970 writing eight screenplays Kurosawa directed. He often worked with Hideo Oguni, Ryūzō Kikushima as well as Kurosawa himself on the scripts for those projects. Hashimoto won numerous awards for his writing, including a succession of

Blue Ribbon Awards The are film-specific prizes awarded solely by movie critics and writers in Tokyo, Japan, established in 1950 by , established under the name of the "Association of Tokyo Film Journalists Award", which was formed mainly by film reporters from th ...

and Mainichi Film Awards, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s. Hashimoto wrote more than eighty screenplays, including ''

'', '' Ikiru'', ''

'' (1950), ''

Throne of Blood is a 1957 Japanese epic ''jidaigeki'' film co-written, produced, edited, and directed by Akira Kurosawa, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. The film transposes the plot of English dramatist William Shakespeare's play ''Macbeth'' (1606) fr ...

'' (a 1957 adaptation of ''

Macbeth ''The Tragedy of Macbeth'', often shortened to ''Macbeth'' (), is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, estimated to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the physically violent and damaging psychological effects of political ambiti ...

'' set in Japan), and ''

The Hidden Fortress is a 1958 Japanese ''epic jidaigeki'' adventure film directed by Akira Kurosawa, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. It tells the story of two peasants who agree to escort a man and a woman across enemy lines in return for gold without knowi ...

'' (1958). He also directed three films. Achieving international acclaim, Hashimoto's scripts inspired notable films abroad, including ''

The Magnificent Seven ''The Magnificent Seven'' is a 1960 American Western film directed by John Sturges. The screenplay, credited to William Roberts, is a remake – in an Old West-style – of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 Japanese film '' Seven Samurai'' (itself init ...

'' (1960 and then remade again in 2016), a remake of ''Seven Samurai'', and ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera media franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and Cultural impact of Star Wars, quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop cu ...

'' (1977), which George Lucas has described as inspired by ''The Hidden Fortress.'' In 2006, he authored a memoir entitled ''Compound Cinematics: Akira Kurosawa and I''. In 2008, Hashimoto wrote a screenplay for ''I Want to Be a Shellfish'', a second full-length film adaptation of the

post-World War II The aftermath of World War II saw the rise of two global superpowers, the United States (U.S.) and the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.). The aftermath of World War II was also defined by the rising threat of nuclear warfare, the creation and implementati ...

-based television series he wrote for

Tokyo Broadcasting System Television JORX-DTV (channel 6), branded as , is the flagship station of the Japan News Network in the Kantō region. It is owned-and-operated by , a subsidiary of TBS Holdings. TBS Television is one of the "five private broadcasters based in Tokyo." ...

in 1958.

Later life and death

Hashimoto turned 100 in April 2018. He died in Tokyo on 19 July 2018 at the age of 100. In a tribute article for TIME magazine, film director

Antoine Fuqua Antoine Fuqua (; born May 30, 1965) is an American film director known for his work in the action and thriller genres. He was originally known as a director of music videos, and made his film debut in 1998 with '' The Replacement Killers''. His ...

expressed his respect for Hashimoto as a screenwriter stating: "(Hashimoto's) … working with

and Hideo Oguni, was so beautiful and poetic and powerful and heartbreaking. It was all about justice, it was all about sacrifice, and it made me want to be one of those guys".

Awards and honors

* 1950: Blue Ribbon Award for Best Screenplay for ''

'' * 1952: Mainichi Film Award for Best Screenplay for '' Ikiru'' * 1956: Mainichi Film Award for Best Screenplay for '' Mahiru no ankoku'' * 1956: Blue Ribbon Awards for Best Screenplay for ''Mahiru no ankoku'' * 1958: Mainichi Film Award for Best Screenplay for ''

Summer Clouds , also titled ''Herringbone Clouds'', is a 1958 Japanese drama (film and television), drama film directed by Mikio Naruse. It was Naruse's first film in colour and in widescreen, widescreen format. Plot Journalist Okawa interviews farming woman ...

'', '' Stakeout'' and '' Night Drum'' * 1958: Blue Ribbon Awards for Best Screenplay for ''Summer Clouds'' and ''Stakeout'' * 1958:

Kinema Junpo , commonly called , is Japan's oldest film magazine and began publication in July 1919. It was first published three times a month, using the Japanese ''Jun'' (旬) system of dividing months into three parts, but the postwar ''Kinema Junpō'' ha ...

's Best Screenwriter Award for ''

'' * 1960: Mainichi Film Award for Best Screenplay for ''Black Art Book'' ( :ja:黒い画集) * 1962: Blue Ribbon Award for Best Screenplay for '' Harakiri'' * 1966: Mainichi Film Award for Best Screenplay for ''

Shiroi Kyotō is a 1965 novel by Toyoko Yamasaki. It has been adapted into a film in 1966 and then five times as a television series in 1967, 1978, 1990, 2003, and 2019. The 1966 film was entered into the 5th Moscow International Film Festival where it won a ...

'' * 1974: Mainichi Film Award for Best Screenplay for '' Castle of Sand'' * 2015: Mainichi Film Award Special Prize for screenwriting

Filmography

Hashimoto is credited in the making of at least 85 films.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hashimoto, Shinobu 1918 births 2018 deaths Japanese men centenarians Japanese screenwriters Japanese male screenwriters Writers from Hyōgo Prefecture Deaths from pneumonia in Japan Imperial Japanese Army personnel