In 1958, Suzuki Seitar? was a 35-year-old, lower-ranking, critically unrec-ognized contract director at Nikkatsu studios, despite the fact that he had already made fifteen feature-length program pictures. When he changed his professional name from “Suzuki Seitar?,” his birth name, to the more flamboyant “Suzuki Seijun,” no one in the press or film industry seems to …