Yasuo Furuhata is a Japanese film director, who won the 2000 Japan Academy Prize for Director of the Year for 'Poppoya'. A proficient commercial director, Furuhata made his debut with the youth film Bad Girl Yoko (Hikō shōjo Yōko, 1966), about a girl who, along with her boyfriend, escapes Japan by boarding a boat to San Tropez. He truly cut his teeth, however, on two popular series of Toei action pictures: Modern Yakuza (Gendai yakuza), of which he directed two episodes, and Abashiri Prison (Abashiri bangaichi), to which he contributed six. The latter series cemented a productive working relationship with tough-guy star Ken Takakura, and, with its Hokkaido settings, established the director’s penchant for snowbound locations. Furuhata worked again with Taka­kura on WinterFlower (Fuyunohana, 1978), about a former yakuza looking after the teenage daughter of a fellow gangster for whose death he was responsible. The film’s mood earned comparisons with French crime pictures. Takakura also starred in Station (Eki, 1981), following twelve years in the life and career of a policeman who also competes as an Olympic sharpshooter, and Demon (Yasha, 1985), about an ex-criminal who has left the gangster life to marry and work as a fisherman in a coastal village. Both films centered more on personal drama than on action: Demon was a mature character study, rich in local color and commenting intelligently on the reaction of small communities to such ostensibly urban phenomena as alcohol abuse, gambling, and crime. Though this film included action scenes more typical of a crime thriller, Furuhata also made more straightforwardly dramatic films, often with romantic themes. Love (IzakayaChōji, 1983) charted the enduring passion between former lovers. Buddies (Aun, 1989) was an account of a friendship destroyed by the unspoken love of one friend for the wife of the other; it was set against the backdrop of prewar society and politics, as was WinterCamellia (Kants Watch drama online for free.