Master K Classes
For a Master Class in Kinbaku
Urado Hiroshi
Urado Hiroshi (also Urato Hiroshi) is the great movie rigger from Nikkatsu film studio’s Golden age. As the man who devised the kinbaku for over 40 of the most famous Nikkatsu films, including the first film adaptation of Dan Oniroku’s famous SM novel Hana to Hebi (“Flower and Snake”) and Ikeniie Fujin (“Wife to be Sacrificed”) he is a man familiar with what it took to make a situation dramatic … or erotic … and not just with his rope but with all the elements that go into making a filmed scene successful: costumes, props, acting, etc.
However, Urado was much more than just a creative “rigger.” He was/is also a literary man of merit, a writer and scholar who wrote stories for Uramado and later scripts for Nikkatsu, created a very profitable series of novels on SM themes—the SM Tanbi Bungaku series and it’s two supplements, SM Tanbi Bungaku Bekkan 1 & 2; the second of these being one of the earliest kinbaku tutorial books ever published. He also served as rope master for book projects including the three volume “Fuzoku Jidai Kinbaku” series, Yakuza Tenshi (vol. 3) and the elegant Kinbaku Taizen with photography by the talented Shinoyama Kishin. In 1970 Urado also did one volume of Nawa to Onna, an attractive two volume set of bondage photography.
In March of 2015, Urado’s long-awaited memoirs of his days at Nikkatsu were published in Japan. For those that can read Japanese it is a delightful read and can be found on Amazon.co.jp.
After meeting him in 2010, Master “K” has had the great honor of spending much delightful time with Urado-sensei discussing many aspects of sensei's career and his style of kinbaku as well as being shown techniques by this renowned master, culminating in his being named by Urado-sensei, in the Japanese manner, as successor to his style of kinbaku.
Poster for “Flower and Snake” starring Tani Naomi
© Nikkatsu Studios, 1974
You can read a lot more about Urado Hiroshi and all the legendary bakushi and kinabku artists in the biography section of the new and revised second edition of “The Beauty of Kinbaku”, available at Amazon.com, thebeautyofkinbaku.com and booksellers worldwide.
