
Directing
Kenji Onishi
Born
1973-04-13 (53)
Place of birth
Mie Prefecture, Japan
Known for
Directing
Credits
65 titles
A central figure on the Tokyo experimental film scene and already a veteran of the international festival circuit, Kenji Onishi has made nearly 200 films since 1990, ranging from Super-8 studies of light to full-length features filled with drugs and violence. His filmmaking output spans many genres, and he has become known for a distinctive personal style that melds structural concerns with overtly sensationalist subject matter.
Known for
NRAn improvised film study starring Kumiko Watanuki's solo play in an empty room.
SUICIDE BOX
1997
NRExperimental short by Kenji Onishi.
THRASHGIRLS
1998
NRA behind the scenes documentary of Kenji Onishi's never completed 35mm feature film "Shiroyasha", shot between 2002 and 2004.
MAKING OF SHIROYASHA
2004
NRExperimental short by Kenji Onishi.
NOTHING GOSE
2000
NRExperimental film by Minai Kyoko.
Film Pilgrimage in Niigata: Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial
2013
NRA girl and a boy, a chance encounter with the camera. She invites the photographer to her room. Once inside, the woman takes off her clothers and provokes the man. An unblemished composition of umblemished eroticism. Kenji Onishi's entry in the "Roji no ko" series.
Alley Child
1998
Film credits
2010s · 8 titles
NRExperimental film by Minai Kyoko.
Film Pilgrimage in Niigata: Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial
2013
NRNakagawa shot “Coming Future” on the nights of December 24 and 25, 2009, in Shibuya, making it his location for an idealized Bohemia in the heart of Tokyo. Interesting interviews/discussions with Kenji Murakami, Nobuhiro Yamashita, Kenji Onishi, Tetsuaki Matsue and more... By far the most interesting sequence is with Kenji Onishi (“A Burning Star”). Wielding a super-8 camera, Onishi documents his own interview, taking random shots of street-life and buildings. He leavens his monologue with statements bordering between cliché and outré. “A movie that aims to make a message is boring.”
Coming Future
2010
NR
Buchou to UFO-gokko
2010
NRThis is a film about a medium approaching extinction, an 8mm documentary film about a vanishing 8mm cinema. Blending two genres, the science film and the personal film, and benefiting from the participation of multiple generations of cineastes, it is a reflection upon the original cinematic experience.
Associations of Silverpencils
2011
NRThe film heritage of Yukiyasu Shimada.
SPRITE
2013
NRA very rare, Super 8 film by Fujiwara Sho (pen name Fujiwara Dragon), that was screened only one time. Some scenes were later reused in one of Kenji Onishi versions of Edge Cutters and altered. There were many versions of Edge Cutters and Kenji Onishi altered them for different screenings.
A Chinese Fisherman
2010
NRYasuda Satoru, 8mm. Singing, children, sea, mountains, travel, friends. Archive and diary like footage repeated and distorted multiple times - in the end it became like a "ghost diary". R-1/3~3/3
Yasuda Satoru World Trip vol.3
2016
NRExperimental short by Kenichi Kataoka.
MISS JUPITER & MR CLITORIS
2010
2000s · 5 titles
NRA behind the scenes documentary of Kenji Onishi's never completed 35mm feature film "Shiroyasha", shot between 2002 and 2004.
MAKING OF SHIROYASHA
2004
NRVIDA, starring AV actress Hotaru Hazuki, is an erotic work aiming directly at the Hypothalamus. DEATH is an event that makes life emerge in a different language. The film was entirely self-developed at home
VIDA
2008
NRKenji Murakami seeks out legendary wildman director Kenji Onishi and arranges a meeting with director Yoko Oguchi. The meeting turns unexpectedly intense...
Dear Mrs Ougi Chikage
2006
NRFocusing on a woman addicted to sex and drugs in a corner of the city, this film depicts an exclusive and cold world on a monochrome screen. Attempting to fuse experimental film and dramatic film, this work exposes raw violence and eliminates explanatory expressions. It depicts the weight of the distance between a man and a woman that deepens after a small incident.
Out of Frame (Short Version)
2000
NRA man fingering the girl before killing her. Camera cuts to blue sky and cat. A man choking his girl. Onishi at his usual with framing, extreme close-ups, expectations and black inserts.
PRAGUE
2003
1990s · 12 titles
NRBlue Max (1997) shows a woman looking out of a window, but also working with extreme close-ups: The street, her neck, the window, her knees, the floor and her toes, brought together by the sound of a passing train. Her ears, her mouth, the wall and the door. The sparkling glass of a window and the young woman on top of a naked young man and later the shadows on the wall of both of them. A telephone is ringing and the clouds in the blue sky are travelling by while it all turns into a rape. And the calmness of both of them is quite irritating when they later watch TV together. (www.desistfilm.com)
Blue Max
1997
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Hardcandy
1998
NRA woman spends her days with a sadistic man and decadent eyes. The man, with eyes drowning in drugs, constantly demands abnormal sexual acts from the woman. Eventually, after the man commits murder, the woman tries to escape this wrong way of life. The film depicts a world adorned with sex and violence. In the corners of the city, an exclusive individual builds their own colony. Imperfect human relationships, born from incomplete communication, unfold under the slow passage of time. The shadow-based imagery envelops the entire film more than necessary, in order to highlight the dark side of the human heart.
The Aquarium City
1996
NRFocusing on a woman addicted to sex and drugs in a corner of the city, this film depicts an exclusive and cold world on a monochrome screen. Attempting to fuse experimental film and dramatic film, this work exposes raw violence and eliminates explanatory expressions. It depicts the weight of the distance between a man and a woman that deepens after a small incident.
Out of Frame
1996
NRA woman spends her days with a sadistic man and decadent eyes. The man, with eyes drowning in drugs, constantly demands abnormal sexual acts from the woman. Eventually, after the man commits murder, the woman tries to escape this wrong way of life.. The film depicts a world adorned with sex and violence. In the corners of the city, an exclusive individual builds their own colony. Imperfect human relationships, born from incomplete communication, unfold under the slow passage of time. The shadow-based imagery envelops the entire film more than necessary, in order to highlight the dark side of the human heart.
The Aquarium City (Short Version)
1996
NRThe man was seeking pleasure beyond sex. And the ultimate ecstasy he sought was pace poles and the death throes of a person. The man drags his friend Shinichi and his girlfriend Akiko into his world of madness, gradually corrupting their relationship and manipulating them. Then, he murders Shinichi in front of Akiko. Akiko's mind and body collapse from the shock, and the man toys with her for his own pleasure. However, Akiko's mind gradually becomes abnormal, and she enters a world where madness can be sanity.
Zetcho: The Acme
1997
NRAn ordinary, everyday scene is transported to the scene of a bizarre, gruesome murder. An unreal world infiltrates the corners of everyday life. That eye, that man, kidnapped a woman, imprisoned and restrained her, assaulted and murdered her, and dismembered her body. But for the man, it was nothing more than an ordinary, unremarkable moment.
Squareworld (Short Version)
1995
NRThe man was seeking pleasure beyond sex. And the ultimate ecstasy he sought was pace poles and the death throes of a person. The man drags his friend Shinichi and his girlfriend Akiko into his world of madness, gradually corrupting their relationship and manipulating them. Then, he murders Shinichi in front of Akiko. Akiko's mind and body collapse from the shock, and the man toys with her for his own pleasure. However, Akiko's mind gradually becomes abnormal, and she enters a world where madness can be sanity.
Zetcho: The Acme (Short Version)
1997
4.0An ordinary, everyday scene is transported to the scene of a bizarre, gruesome murder. An unreal world infiltrates the corners of everyday life. That eye, that man, kidnapped a woman, imprisoned and restrained her, assaulted and murdered her, and dismembered her body. But for the man, it was nothing more than an ordinary, unremarkable moment.
Squareworld
1995
NRWith a curious eye, he saw a UFO passing over the neighbor's roof, and strange things began to happen around him. The taste of the tap water changed, his clock kept getting wrong, his lover's behavior was strange, acquaintances and friends were acting oddly, and people in town started giving him strange looks. There must be something going on, he thought, and he became paranoid about the events happening unseen. Had the stress built up inside him diminished his ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality?
The Underground Water (Short Version)
1996
NRWith a curious eye, he saw a UFO passing over the neighbor's roof, and strange things began to happen around him. The taste of the tap water changed, his clock kept getting wrong, his lover's behavior was strange, acquaintances and friends were acting oddly, and people in town started giving him strange looks. There must be something going on, he thought, and he became paranoid about the events happening unseen. Had the stress built up inside him diminished his ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality?
The Underground Water
1996
NRExperimental film by Kenji Onishi.
Sketch of Kanahama, the Repair Worker
1995
Behind the camera
NRAn improvised film study starring Kumiko Watanuki's solo play in an empty room.
SUICIDE BOX
1997
NRExperimental short by Kenji Onishi.
THRASHGIRLS
1998
NRA behind the scenes documentary of Kenji Onishi's never completed 35mm feature film "Shiroyasha", shot between 2002 and 2004.
MAKING OF SHIROYASHA
2004
NRExperimental short by Kenji Onishi.
NOTHING GOSE
2000
NRA girl and a boy, a chance encounter with the camera. She invites the photographer to her room. Once inside, the woman takes off her clothers and provokes the man. An unblemished composition of umblemished eroticism. Kenji Onishi's entry in the "Roji no ko" series.
Alley Child
1998
6.0"The clouds are rushing by, and the architecture of men fit so well in that movement. The bricks. The light is harsh and blue. But in the night it is different, you walk down the street and the sun turns into a light bulb again, the houses are asleep. It feels like thunder and the houses seemed to be dipped into blue and turquoise colours. And then it all turns blue again."
Light Point
1996
5.5“N” as in Nurse. A man wandering in an abandoned hospital ward, reflections on Lost Time, Violence and traces of Nostalgia. 16mm film by Kenji Onishi.
N
1996
NRWhite and grey, a big screen with noises and voices: we hear a man suffering. The film follows the hardscrabble day-to-day exploits of a nameless hero as he is trying to survive amidst violent, desperate men and desolate landscapes. Later we will watch them all again building a metal construction out in the desert. So these men here will find an Asian guy, almost dead: “You have got a point!” The Promised Land? No, and it is someone else who will die in the end. Or will simply end up in hallucinations.
East End
2001
NRExperimental short by Kenji Onishi.
SMOKING HIGH
1997
NRExperimental short by Kenji Onishi.
START!
1997
NRNo synopsis available yet.
EDGE CUTTERS
2010
NRAn 8mm film drama. Written by Fusako Kumagai and directed by Kenji Onishi.
TRIANGLE⊿SLANT
1997
NRAn 8mm film drama. Written by Fusako Kumagai and directed by Kenji Onishi.
TRIANGLE⊿SLANT
1997
NRBlue Max (1997) shows a woman looking out of a window, but also working with extreme close-ups: The street, her neck, the window, her knees, the floor and her toes, brought together by the sound of a passing train. Her ears, her mouth, the wall and the door. The sparkling glass of a window and the young woman on top of a naked young man and later the shadows on the wall of both of them. A telephone is ringing and the clouds in the blue sky are travelling by while it all turns into a rape. And the calmness of both of them is quite irritating when they later watch TV together. (www.desistfilm.com)
Blue Max
1997
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Hardcandy
1998
NRNo synopsis available yet.
STORNS
1995
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Rabbit Hunting
1998
NRAn experimental 8mm night film made of handheld urban fragments.
EKTADIARY: NIGHT COLOURS
2000
5.0Short super8 film by Kenji Onishi.
CAT & CURTAIN
1995
NREarly work by Kenji Onishi.
Curtain
1993
NRExperimental short by Kenji Onishi.
Garden Green
2005
NRThe director films his friends and an UFO at Chichibu.
UFO Flying Course
2010
NRExperimental short by Kenji Onishi.
Light of Darkness (Summer Sketch)
1996
NRMusic clip by Kenji Onishi.
RAPE BOY
2007
NRVIDA, starring AV actress Hotaru Hazuki, is an erotic work aiming directly at the Hypothalamus. DEATH is an event that makes life emerge in a different language. The film was entirely self-developed at home
VIDA
2008
NREveryday events illuminated by the summer sun, seemingly insignificant observations, are brought to life by an 8mm camera. The changing sky, the trajectory of the sun, captured using stop-motion; the camera is a machine that collects light as if cutting out the air itself.
Summertime Landscape
1994
NRA woman spends her days with a sadistic man and decadent eyes. The man, with eyes drowning in drugs, constantly demands abnormal sexual acts from the woman. Eventually, after the man commits murder, the woman tries to escape this wrong way of life. The film depicts a world adorned with sex and violence. In the corners of the city, an exclusive individual builds their own colony. Imperfect human relationships, born from incomplete communication, unfold under the slow passage of time. The shadow-based imagery envelops the entire film more than necessary, in order to highlight the dark side of the human heart.
The Aquarium City
1996
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Crazy Exposure
2007
NRI filmed the sunrise on January the 1st, 1995. This short was originally meant to be a test roll for a feature film I was going to shoot. I really like its feverish yellow – and I then scratched onto it the title, "SONG". As it was a silent film, I dared to call it that way.
SONG
1995
NR8mm film portrait of Fusako Kumagai.
功夫 GIRL
1997
NRA breath of light, a film poem by in-camera editing that is more sensory than experimental.
Canvas (Short Version)
1995
NRExperimental short by Kenji Onishi.
EDGE CUTTERS
2011
NRExperimental short by Kenji Onishi.
車窓 -WINDOW-
1998
NRThe Air-Conditioning System (1997) introduces us to a young man in his flat, and the ways of communication with his girlfriend. The sky is blue and skirts are put on the balcony for drying. The wind will carry everything away, just like the noise and music or the porn we watch with him later on TV (he prefers to look at western blonde women). What will happen when the young woman in her flat will have found out soon that he is looking at her (and listening to her) via the air-conditioning system?
The Air-Conditioning System
1997
7.0A private film from the Nagoya era. Single-8 lens fetishism photographing Nozomi Horikawa.
SWEET VOICE
1994
NRExperimental Super 8 short by Kenji Onishi.
View
1996
NRA girl named Fuchyako (Kumagai Fusako) is smoking a cigarette and singing to the background music of a blues song. Waterdrops.
BRUCE
1997
NRExperimental short by Kenji Onishi.
Nightshift
1993
NREarly work by Kenji Onishi.
WHITE
1992
NRDigital Video, Kanahama Natsuyo model.
PORNOGRIFFITH
2004
