Great action director(s) that's not Koichi Sakamoto

[Kamen Rider ZIX]

So after watching GPTV's review of Movie War Ultimatum (which I want to watch right now!!!) Koichi Sakamoto is getting a lot of attention for being an awesome action director [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x14SuDYOxmw&feature=plcp"][GPTV] SUPER CLIMAX ULTIMATUM! Super Climax Heroes and Kamen Rider Movie Taisen Ultimatum Review - YouTube[/ame]

It got me thinking: Are there action any action directors for toku that choreograph fight scenes as good as Koichi? What do you guys think? (Show some videos if possible)

 

[Aoi Kurenai]

Osamu Kaneda is/was pretty great as an action director. I think he's the one who directed that fight in Kamen Rider ZO that was a single take lasting for something crazy like a minute before it cut away to a different angle. That right there is impressive.

 

[Shougo B'Stard]

I think Junji Yamaoka is a great and overlooked action director.

Yamaoka's fights are fast and he always finds creative ways to film them, arranging the fights to where the Sentai team will all be off in their own separate fights and you can see the different members in the background in a shot focusing on one particular member. He sometimes takes a handheld and runs through a big brawl like the viewer is in the midst of it. And Yamaoka also pushed for actors to do as many of their own stunts as possible in out of suit fights.

I don't like wire-fu, and Yamaoka worked in the days before all of that, when fights seemed brutal. I also like how Yamaoka often puts thoughts into how shots look -- he doesn't just film a fight, but he'll go for kind of artsy shots depending on the location.

And he makes good use of suit actors' special skills. Kazuo Niibori, trained at sword fighting? Awesome sword fights for him, making the sword synonymous with Red for a while. Someone like Tsutomu Kitagawa excelling at gymnastics? He incorporates that into fights, bringing something different to them.

Another action director I like is Kazuyoshi Yamada, who did Agito. His fights weren't crazy extravagant, but they'd often get to the emotion of where the character was, and would be filmed in interesting ways. For as story-driven as Agito was, I think it had a lot of great action scenes, and was probably the last Rider to have memorable action scenes before Rider started shilling bad for Bandai and the action began to depend heavily on CGI.

 

[Glamador]

Another action director I like is Kazuyoshi Yamada, who did Agito. His fights weren't crazy extravagant, but they'd often get to the emotion of where the character was, and would be filmed in interesting ways. For as story-driven as Agito was, I think it had a lot of great action scenes, and was probably the last Rider to have memorable action scenes before Rider started shilling bad for Bandai and the action began to depend heavily on CGI.

Do you forget that Faiz had almost no CGI in its fights until the finishers, much like Kuuga and Agito? And even the finishers always had a physical aspect that was never wholly re-used footage.

If Glam looks to praise the fight scenes in a Rider series for being down and dirty, he points to Faiz. Whoever that action director was he deserves praise. Unfortunately, Glamador has looked in vain for the names of action directors of various shows in romaji. Is there a Toku IMDB?

 

[Inui Takumi]

I think an action director to look out for is Hirofumi Fukuzawa, the suit actor for most of the Red sentai heroes for over a decade now. His first show as action director is Gobusters and despite how much of a train wreck the show is, when the action starts more often than not it is really well done. It feels a lot more fluid and intricate than in recent Sentai and captured the feel of what I think they originally were trying to go for with Gobusters. Being a seasoned vet when it comes to suit acting, he's perfect to find new and interesting ways to film and plan out fight scenes. And hopefully he'll be on the crew list next year with Sakamoto for Kyoryuger. That could only mean great things.

Also, I couldn't find his name, but whoever is doing the action direction for Kamen Rider Wizard seems to be taking a few pages from Sakamoto's book and adding his own flavor to it. It's the best choreography I've seen in Kamen Rider outside of recent movies in quite some time.

 

[Shougo B'Stard]

Do you forget that Faiz had almost no CGI in its fights until the finishers, much like Kuuga and Agito?

Faiz, unlike Kuuga or Agito, still fooled around with talk-a-holic gadgets and junk in the middle of a fight, though. Not as bad as the cards or Gaia Memories could be, but, still...it interrupted the fight. I can't really remember one fight in the show that was interesting, but I thought Seiji Takaiwa did a good job suit acting.

If Glam looks to praise the fight scenes in a Rider series for being down and dirty, he points to Faiz. Whoever that action director was he deserves praise. Unfortunately, Glamador has looked in vain for the names of action directors of various shows in romaji.

Faiz's action director was Takeshi Miyazaki, who was also the main action director of Ryuki, Blade, Hibiki, Kabuto, Den-O, Decade, W, OOO and Fourze. He's rumored to be the action director for Kyoryuger, too.

Also, I couldn't find his name, but whoever is doing the action direction for Kamen Rider Wizard seems to be taking a few pages from Sakamoto's book and adding his own flavor to it. It's the best choreography I've seen in Kamen Rider outside of recent movies in quite some time.

Hirofumi Ishigaki, who was Sentai's action director from Dekaranger to Gokaiger.

Fukuzawa's not exactly unique in that he's a performer who switched over to directing -- his mentor, Kazuo Niibori did the same. Ishigaki played numerous Sentai characters (he's the poor bastard who put on weight to play Yellow Owl in-suit) before becoming a director, and so did Miyazaki.

 

[Glamador]

Faiz's action director was Takeshi Miyazaki, who was also the main action director of Ryuki, Blade, Hibiki, Kabuto, Den-O, Decade, W, OOO and Fourze. He's rumored to be the action director for Kyoryuger, too.

Really? How strange...the choreography and framing were very very different between Ryuki/Blade, Faiz, and Hibiki...which were all different from the action in Den-O onward which were similar to each other.

Glam would have thought the action director would have the most influence on how a show's action and choreography feel, but perhaps the director has more influence over the camera-work and maybe they had different teams of choreographers, who knows.

Similarly though, Glamador can't recall specifically more than maybe...2 or 3 fights out of 50 from Kuuga or Agito. Generally no rider series Glam's seen has had what he would call "memorable" fights. Some of the more recent ones have had memorable set-piece bits, the CGI heavy finishers and their ilk. But the choreography itself? Not really. All Glamador can say is that he felt a lot more "into it" in Faiz's fights than most other series. And for that, he praises it. The suit actor was a big part of it. His little hand flick habit was entertaining in itself.

 

[Inui Takumi]

Hirofumi Ishigaki, who was Sentai's action director from Dekaranger to Gokaiger.

Fukuzawa's not exactly unique in that he's a performer who switched over to directing -- his mentor, Kazuo Niibori did the same. Ishigaki played numerous Sentai characters (he's the poor bastard who put on weight to play Yellow Owl in-suit) before becoming a director, and so did Miyazaki.

Ahh, interesting. It feels like both the fight choreography and camera angles are a lot different, at least from sentai.

I figured Fukuzawa wasn't the only one who went from suit acting to action direction. I guess since he's one of the few current suit actors I know of, the fact sort of stood out. Nonetheless, he's doing an awesome job with the action in Gobusters.

And I seriously didn't know that Ishigaki had to put on weight for Yellow Owl. That is some fuckin dedication to the craft right there.

 

[Kamen Rider ZIX]

Does anoybody who's the action director for the Garo series? I wanna say it's Keita Amemiya but I could be wrong.

Also the action director for Gokaiger VS Gavan, Shojiro Nakazawa I think? That movie surprised me of how entertaining the fight scenes were while homaging how Gavan was originally filmed at the same time.

I believe Go-Buster's Hirofumi Fukuzawa is doing a really good job directing fight scenes for the show. I just love the fact that he actually puts all the live actors to work and have them go through action training camp, even veteran sentai actor Hiroya Matsumoto (Jin Masato) has to do it too!! I think the show has more out of suits fight scenes than Gokaiger.
0:41 Yasuhiro Takeuchi'a rape face :169:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyBeZ4UXlYg&feature=player_embedded"]DVD&Blu-ray????????????VOL.4??????? - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Goty]

Also the action director for Gokaiger VS Gavan, Shojiro Nakazawa I think? That movie surprised me of how entertaining the fight scenes were while homaging how Gavan was originally filmed at the same time.

Nakazawa was the head director. He was also the main director of Gokaiger, Shinkenger, Gekiranger and is now doing Wizard.
But yeah, i notice he does have a strong influence over the fighting scenes whenever he directs. IIRC he personally directed the Legend War too.

I just love the fact that he actually puts all the live actors to work and have them go through action training camp, even veteran sentai actor Hiroya Matsumoto (Jin Masato) has to do it too!!

The actors actually do this kind of training every year. The thing is that Toei started putting this and lots of other stuff out as dvd extra just now, probably so the Go-Busters' dvds could sell a little better.