ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that industry insiders, commentators, and consumers all regarded the production of feature films for video release as a legitimate form of filmmaking. The growth of home video as a consumer product in the 1980s helped revitalize the Japanese film industry, which had been crippled by competition from television since the early 1960s, and became a radical new way to create, distribute, and promote film. V-Cinema has at least three outstanding features that, in combination, were a radical departure from what came before: production costs were extremely low, there were no theatrical releases, and it provided a breeding ground for new artistic talents. The resources Toei Video made available to its early V-Cinema productions were more generous than the means at the disposal of filmmakers for other companies. Hands-on filmmaking experience was not a prerequisite for those wishing to ascend the director's chair in V-Cinema.
