was a Japanese film director who directed such pinku eiga films as and . He also produced Nagisa Ōshima's controversial film In the Realm of the Senses (1976). He has been called "the most important director to emerge in the pink film genre," and one of "Japan's leading directors of the 1960s." His 2010 film, Caterpillar, was nominated for the Golden Bear at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival. Early life Kōji Wakamatsu was born in Wakuya, Miyagi, Japan on 1 April 1936, from a poor family of rice farmers. Wakamatsu worked in several menial jobs, namely as a construction worker, before becoming a yakuza, as "a member of the Yasuma-gumi clan in the Shinjuku ward of Tokyo". After his criminal experience, he unsuccessfully enrolled in television before beginning his film career with Nikkatsu in 1963. Career Between 1963 and 1965, he directed 20 exploitation films for the studio, based on sensational topics of the day. He became interested in the Pink Film genre after the success of Tetsuji Takechi's 1964 Daydream. Nikkatsu submitted his (also known as Secrets Behind the Wall) (1965) to the 15th Berlin International Film Festival while the film was still under review by Eirin, the Japanese film-rating board. This submission before passing Eirin's review was doubly embarrassing for the government since pink films, though already emerging as the dominant domestic cinematic genre, were not regarded as worthy of critical attention or international export. The film received an enthusiastic reception at the festival, but Nikkatsu, fearful of governmental retaliatory action, gave it a low-profile domestic release. Disappointed, Wakamatsu quit the studio to form his own company. Wakamatsu's independent films of the late 1960s were very low-budget, but often artistically done works, usually concerned with sex and extreme violence mixed with political messages. Some critics have suggested that these films were an intentional provocation to the government, in order to generate free publicity resulting from censorship controversies. His films were usually produced for less than 1,000,000 yen (about $5,000), necessitating extreme cost-cutting measures including location shooting, single-takes, and natural lighting. His early films were usually in black and white with occasional bursts of color for theatrical effect. His first self-produced film was , a story of a man who kidnaps, tortures and sexually abuses a woman until she finally escapes and stabs him to death. Freeze-frames, flash-backs, hand-held camera and locations limited to two rooms and a