Trivia / Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

• Acclaimed Flop: The movie made only a tenth of its budget back in its theatrical run, but critics loved the movie and it won awards at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival.
• Box Office Bomb: Only grossed $502,758 on a budget of $5 million.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: Paul Schrader considers this to be the best film he ever directed.
  It's the one I'd stand by – as a screenwriter it's Taxi Driver, but as a director it's Mishima.
• Historical Beauty Update: Averted with Ken Ogata as Mishima—in addition to portraying Mishima from his mid-'20s to his death, he is visibly less muscular than Mishima was at his peak, although he clearly worked out for the role.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The film has never been officially screened or released on home video in Japan. It has been shown occasionally on Japanese television (albeit with the gay bar scene removed), but the only other way to watch it there is to import the U.S. DVD and Blu-Ray releases.
• Troubled Production: From its inception, the film was faced with a neverending barrage of setbacks and controversy due to the real Mishima's supporters and the reluctance of Japanese media to talk about him or his politics.
  • Notably, Mishima's widow tried to stymie the production at multiple turns due to its frank depiction of her late husband's homosexuality, going so far as to pressure the Japanese financiers to pull out at the last minute and threatening to sue the producers if she was depicted in any way in the film (which is why Mishima's wife is never actually seen or named).
  • Paul Schrader and cinematographer John Bailey considered firing the entire camera department and replacing them with an American crew because they worked too slow.
  • The production considered moving to the UK or Los Angeles due to bomb threats against the studio where they were filming.

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