Foreign critics used to worship at the altars of Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi -- Olympian auteurs who stood aloof from the directorial masses churning out product on studio conveyor belts.
True, even these masters made what might be called genre films -- what is Kurosawa's "Yojimbo" if not a John Ford Western recast as a jidai geki (period drama)? But as the critics pointed out, they had a freedom to be their own artistic selves that the genre specialists, slaves to formula, did not.
Critical fashions have since changed. Now those same specialists are praised abroad for personal styles and experimentations that were once thought not to exist. One of the celebrators is Chris D. (nee Desjardins), a punk rocker turned programmer for the Los Angeles Cinematheque, where he and his colleagues presented, starting in 1997, a series called Japanese Outlaw Masters, showcasing directors who made yakuza, horror and other films in once lightly regarded genres.