Born May 24, 1923, in Tokyo, Seijun Suzuki served in the Japanese navy during World War II before enrolling in the Kamakura Academy's film department upon his return to civilian life. Beginning his career as an assistant director, he went to work for Nikkatsu studios in 1954, cranking out more than 40 movies during the next 15 years.

By the late '50s, Suzuki was beginning to put his bizarre stamp on the yakuza films that were Nikkatsu's bread and butter. He helmed nihilistic gangster epics with lurid pop-art aesthetics such as 1963's Youth of the Beast and his masterworks, Tokyo Drifter (1966) and Branded to Kill (1967).

But Suzuki's in-your-face style soon put him at odds with the studio, and during most of the '70s he was blacklisted from the industry. In the '80s, he returned to moviemaking with art films such as the highly lauded Zigeunerweisen and Kagero-za.