What Did Juzo Itami Have to Do with Sweet Home?
Almost everything on the business side. Then he recut the film, and was sued for it.
Juzo Itami is the reason Sweet Home exists twice. His company made the film, he produced the game for Capcom, his name leads the credits on the Famicom box, and his company sold both. Without Itami there is no film for Kurosawa to direct and no licence for Fujiwara to build on.
He is also the reason the film is half lost. The Sweet Home lawsuit, director against producer, is one of the strangest episodes in Japanese film history, and it decided which version of the film the world would be allowed to keep.
THE PRODUCER
The man on both postersItami Productions
By 1989 Juzo Itami was one of Japan's most famous directors, the maker of Tampopo and A Taxing Woman. Sweet Home was made by his company, Itami Productions, and distributed by Toho. He produced the film, and he is the credited producer of Capcom's game as well.
His name is on the box
The Famicom box's credit banner gives him top billing in Japanese: general supervisor, Juzo Itami, ahead of supervisor Kiyoshi Kurosawa. A film director's name sold the game in shops.
He is in the film, too
Itami also appears on screen in a small role, as was his habit from his years as an actor before directing.
THE LAWSUIT
The producer rewrites the directorThe re-edit
After the theatrical run, Itami decided to re-shoot and re-edit parts of the film for its home video and television releases. The released film would no longer be exactly the film Kurosawa had delivered.
Kurosawa sues
Kurosawa was furious, and did something with no precedent in the Japanese film industry at the time: he sued Itami and Itami Productions over the alteration of his film.
Kurosawa loses
He lost the case. Itami Productions kept the right to distribute the re-edited version, and writers on the film have described the result as more Itami's film than Kurosawa's.
THE AFTERMATH
A famous film you cannot properly seeThe original cut is unavailable
The theatrical version of Sweet Home remains unavailable. The film's only home release is its original 1989 release on VHS and LaserDisc, which is why the Kurosawa film that stands behind Resident Evil circulates mainly as a rumour and a tape.
The same year, at Capcom
While the lawsuit ran, the Itami and Capcom connection produced a second game: Fujiwara also directed the 1989 Famicom adaptation of Itami's A Taxing Woman (Marusa no Onna).
The pattern
Sweet Home is remembered as Kurosawa's film and Fujiwara's game. The record says a third man financed, produced, supervised, starred in, and finally recut it. That is the Itami story, and it is why the film side of Sweet Home is the lost side.