Figure 2.10. Street Angel (Malu tianshi, 1937) includes subtitled songs with a bouncing ball cueing audience participation.

Figure 2.11. Conventionalized calligraphy for the yakuza film evokes slashing blades and drops of blood: Battles without Honor or Humanity (Jingi naki tatakai, 1973).

Figure 2.12. Props departments of East Asian cinema; clockwise from upper left: Shanghai, Seoul, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing.

Figure 2.13. Starting with Throne of Blood (Kumo no sujo, lit. Cobweb Castle, Japan, 1957), Kurosawa Akira used famous calligraphers for his films’ titles. For this one, calligrapher Kaneko Otei chose a brush with fraying hairs that created stray lines like cobwebs. It announces the film as an eerie ghost story.

Figure 2.14. King Hu was one of Asia’s directors who deeply cared about calligraphy, usually writing his own for his films; for The Swordsman (Xiao ao jiang hu, 1990), he even affixed his seal at the lower right.

Figure 2.15. Double Suicide (Shinju ten no Amijima, 1969): the woodblock print-inspired production design of Awazu Kiyoshi envelops characters in a calligraphic space.

Figure 2.16. The title of Gewaltopia Trailer (Gebarutopia yokokuhen, 1968).

Figure 2.17. Everything Visible Is Empty (Shiki soku zeku, 1975) is an experimental film copying and performing the Heart Sutra. The calligraphy is by director Matsumoto Toshio himself. Matsumoto organized each shot placement using the color-coded score above the image. Courtesy of Matsumoto Toshio.

Figure 2.18. When computers displaced brushed subtitling in the 1990s, font designers imitated the calligraphic styles that were established sixty years before (see fig. 2.3). This font is based on the hand of veteran subtitle writer Sato Hideo, who created two versions. VP Pachi imitates the gaps and shortcuts of acid-etched subs; VP Yakikomi models photo-chemical, printed subs. Courtesy of Sato Hideo and Font Alliance Network.

Figure 2.19. Die Bad (Jukgeona hokeun nabbeugeona, 2000); this poster design, with flourishes mimicking the spitting blood, marks a turning point in Korean title design.

Figure 2.20. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (Boksuneun naui geot, 2002)—the final character’s spike was designed to work against the knife in the film’s poster. Courtesy of CJ.

Figure 2.21. Choi Ji-Woong modeled his calligraphy for Kim Ki-Duk’s Pieta (2012) on a logo for Jane Eyre (1943), which he found on a flyer from his personal collection. Courtesy of Propaganda and Kim Ki-Duk.

Figure 2.22. Red Cliff 2 (Chi bi Part II: Jue han tian xia, 2009) uses a collage of characters from ancient masters.

Figure 2.23. Rubbing of a stele with calligraphy for “A Poem for General Pei” by Yan Zenqing’s (709–785), one of the most famous calligraphers in history. A designer borrowed the character for “war” (戦; bottom middle) for the logo of Red Cliff 2 (Chi bi Part II: Jue han tian xia, 2009; fig. 2.22). Courtesy of the Taito City Calligraphy Museum.

Figure 2.24. Johnny To’s Drug War (Du zhan, 2012) combines the same Yan Zenqing character for war with the character for “poison” brushed by Yuan Dynasty scholar and calligrapher Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322; upper left). The animated sequence (clockwise from upper left) shows a blood vessel crystalizing into cocaine and sprinkling into the shape of the film’s title.

Figure 2.25. An animated calligraph (生) by calligrapher Sisyu and Team Labo appears out of the ether, then slowly spins from winter, through spring to summer.

Figure 3.1. Yoshida Kiju prefers the “coolness” of type, which activates spectators and resists their desire for a hint about the movie to come. Clockwise from upper left: Flame and Women (Hono to onna, 1967), Eros Plus Massacre (Erosu purasu gyakusatsu, 1969), The Affair (Joen, 1967), and Good for Nothing (Rokudenashi, 1960).

Figure 3.2. Based on an actual incident, the main character of A Woman Named Abe Sada (Jitsuroku Abe Sada, 1975) castrates her lover, paints their names on their futon with a finger dipped in his blood (“Sada, Kichi Alone”), then carves her name into his arm.

Figure 3.3. The wispy characters of Failan (2001) were achieved by using tissue paper rather than brush, matching the melodrama of the weepie.