Reviewed by Mark Schilling What used to be an obscure publishing niche — filmographies in English of Japanese filmmakers — is now a task to which a small army — OK, platoon — of volunteers is now dedicated on Wikipedia, the Internet Movie Database and elsewhere on the Web.
Nonetheless, Alexander Jacoby's book, which provides filmographies and critical profiles of more than 150 Japanese directors from the silent days to the present, serves a vital need.
English-language Web sources, while generally useful, are only as good as their compilers, whose Japanese is often limited or nonexistent and whose knowledge of Japanese directors and their films is often partial, based on only what is available with subtitles.