The great humanist filmmaker Kon Ichikawa, 92, has died. He was hospitalised in late January for complaints of difficulty in breathing, but passed away from pneumonia in a Tokyo hospital yesterday.

Ichikawa was one of the great Japanese directors and one of the rare ones who was eclectic and could work comfortably in any genre. But his primary concern remained the human condition which he constantly explored in his films.There's certainly no one in the world who can watch a film like The Burmese Harp and walk away unmoved. Another of Ichikawa's anti-war films, Fires On The Plain, is even at once haunting, moving and humorous.

I was a late discoverer of Ichikawa's works, but those two films remain unforgettable, deeply etched in both heart and mind.

Ichikawa won the Critics Award in Cannes for his documentary, Tokyo Olympiad, about the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. Before that, he won the Jury Prize in Cannes for his 1960 film, Kagi.