In a corporate coup d'etat, the board of directors at film and theater giant Shochiku Co. removed President Toru Okuyama and his son, Kazuyoshi, a senior managing director, from their posts Monday.Shochiku, Japan's pioneer film company, known for its "Tora-san" series, decided to name Senior Managing Director Nobuyoshi Otani, 52, as its new president, effective the same day, Otani and other executives announced at a hastily called news conference at the Tokyo Stock Exchange press room."We could not leave the situation as it was," Otani said. "Mr. Okuyama and his son exerted exclusive control over our movie and video division, made frequent and arbitrary personnel changes there, and continued reckless investments."The two dismissed executives became part-time board directors, Otani said. A statement issued in the name of Otani said that Okuyama, 73, and his second son, Kazuyoshi, 48, are to blame for the company's sluggish earnings. Despite slack performance in the movie business, they carried out reckless and unprofitable investment plans, the statement said.Otani, grandson of Shochiku founder Takejiro Otani, joined the company in 1968. He became a board director in 1980 and senior managing director in 1984.
