Shôtarô Ikenami

Before World War II, he worked as a stock broker in a Tokyo company. Later, he was a pupil of the Shin Hasegawa theatre script studio, and finally he decided to become a novelist. He was a very prolific writer, and in the 1950s, some of his novels and stories begin to be converted into movies, the first of them being "Fighting Spirit Tear of Nayoroiwa" in 1956. His most important work was the novel-river "Sanada Taihei-ki", firstly serialized from 1974 to 1983 in the "Weekly Asahi". Later, he created the "Ikenami Shotaro Sanada Taiheiki Museum," located in the center of Ueda City, which exhibits books and manuscripts related to Ikenami. But the most famous novel by Ikenami without any doubt was "Koroshi no yonin" (Master Assassin), better known as "Hissatsu shikake-nin". Firstly, it was converted into an ABC TV series from 1972, directed by, amongst others, Kinji Fukasaku and Kenji Misumi and starring Ken Ogata as acupunturist/professional killer of XVIII Century Baian Fujieda. Jirô Tamiya and Ogata himself played the three films based on the TV series (1973-74). In 1981, Yasuo Furuhata directed a new film version of the novel, "Shikake-Nin Baian" (Professional Killer Baian), starring Kinnosuke Nakamura and 'Juzo Itami'qv). And from 1982, Fuji TV made a long new TV series about the novel, starring Keiju Kobayashi (and later Ken Watanabe) as Baian. Ikenami only wrote an original script to be made into a film, in 1960.