International: Japan: Actors & Directors
by rbpnyc | created - 08 May 2022 | updated - 01 Feb 2023 | Public
1. Toshirô Mifune
Actor | Yôjinbô
Toshiro Mifune achieved more worldwide fame than any other Japanese actor of his century. He was born in Tsingtao, China, to Japanese parents and grew up in Dalian. He did not set foot in Japan until he was 21. His father was an importer and a commercial photographer, and young Toshiro worked in ...
2. Akira Kurosawa
Writer | Kakushi-toride no san-akunin
After training as a painter (he storyboards his films as full-scale paintings), Kurosawa entered the film industry in 1936 as an assistant director, eventually making his directorial debut with Sanshiro Sugata (1943). Within a few years, Kurosawa had achieved sufficient stature to allow him greater...
3. Hiroshi Inagaki
Director | Wasurerareta kora
Inagaki's career in film began as an actor--a child actor, in fact, appearing in numerous silent films beginning at the very dawn of Japanese cinema. This is probably why he was promoted to director at the unusually (for Japan) young age of 22. Along with producer Mansaku Itami (later the father of...
4. Takashi Shimura
Actor | Shichinin no samurai
Japanese character actor Takashi Shimura was one of the finest film actors of the 20th century and a leading member of the "stock company" of master director Akira Kurosawa. A native of southern Japan, Shimura was a descendant of the samurai warrior class. Following university training, he founded ...
5. Yasujirô Ozu
Writer | Tôkyô monogatari
Tokyo-born Yasujiro Ozu was a movie buff from childhood, often playing hooky from school in order to see Hollywood movies in his local theatre. In 1923 he landed a job as a camera assistant at Shochiku Studios in Tokyo. Three years later, he was made an assistant director and directed his first ...
6. Shintarô Katsu
Actor | Zatôichi to yôjinbô
Shintarô Katsu was born on November 29, 1931 in Tokyo, Japan. He was an actor and director, known for Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo (1970), Kaoyaku (1971) and Zatoichi and the One-Armed Swordsman (1971). He was married to Tamao Nakamura. He died on June 21, 1997 in Kashiwa, Japan.
7. Tatsuya Nakadai
Actor | Seppuku
Japanese leading man, an important star and one of the handful of Japanese actors well known outside Japan. Nakadai was a tall handsome clerk in a Tokyo shop when director Masaki Kobayashi encountered him and cast him in The Thick-Walled Room (1956). Nakadai was subsequently cast in the lead role in...
8. Mikio Naruse
Director | Ukigumo
Considered a major figure of Japan's 'golden age of cinema', Mikio Naruse was a filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer who directed 89 films in the period 1930 to 1967. Although Naruse's work is lesser known in the twenty-first century than those of his contemporaries Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi...
9. Kon Ichikawa
Director | Inugami-ke no ichizoku
Kon Ichikawa has been influenced by artists as diverse as Walt Disney and Jean Renoir, and his films cover a wide spectrum of moods, from the comic to the overwhelmingly ironic and even the perverse. Ichikawa began his career as a cartoonist, and this influence is apparent in his skillful use of ...
10. Setsuko Hara
Actress | Banshun
Setsuko Hara became one of Japan's best-loved stars over her 30-year film career. Her signature character type, variations on a daughter devoted to her parents and home, inspired the nickname that stayed with her until retirement: the Eternal Virgin. To some extent, reality mirrored her roles in ...
11. Tomisaburô Wakayama
Actor | Black Rain
Tomisaburô Wakayama was born on September 1, 1929 in Tokyo, Japan. He was an actor and producer, known for Black Rain (1989), Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (1972) and Shogun Assassin (1980). He died on April 2, 1992 in Kyoto, Japan.
12. Meiko Kaji
Actress | Shurayukihime
Meiko Kaji was born on March 24, 1947 in the Kanda area of Tokyo, Japan. Following graduation from the Yakumo Academy High School in Meguro, Tokyo, Japan in 1965, Kaji first began acting in films in the mid-1960's under her real name of Masako Ôta. She was given the stage name Meiko Kaji by ...
13. Nobuhiko Ôbayashi
Director | Hausu
Nobuhiko Ôbayashi was born on January 9, 1938 in Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. He was a director and editor, known for House (1977), Turning Point (1994) and The Discarnates (1988). He was married to Kyôko Ôbayashi. He died on April 10, 2020 in Tokyo, Japan.
14. Ken Ogata
Actor | Hokusai manga
Ken Ogata was born on July 20, 1937 in Tokyo, Japan. He was an actor, known for Edo Porn (1981), Vengeance Is Mine (1979) and The Ballad of Narayama (1983). He died on October 5, 2008 in Tsurumi, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan.
15. Ken Watanabe
Actor | The Last Samurai
Ken Watanabe was born on October 21, 1959 in Uonuma, Japan. Both of his parents were teachers: his mother taught general education and his dad taught calligraphy. He became interested in acting at the age of 24, when a director of England's National Theater Company, where he was studying, told him ...
16. Jûzô Itami
Writer | Osôshiki
A tragic end belies a life led with purpose. The son of a successful filmmaker, Juzo Itami made his name acting in television and films before making a late career shift into screenwriting and directing at age 50. Known to choose the subjects of his films through everyday observations, he often ...
17. Hideo Nakata
Director | Honogurai mizu no soko kara
Born in Kinko-cho, Asakuchi-gun (present-day Asakuchi City), Okayama Prefecture. He is most familiar to Western audiences for his work on Japanese horror films such as Ring (1998), Ring 2 (1999) and Dark Water (2002). Several of these were remade in English as The Ring (2002), Dark Water (2005), ...
18. Takeshi Kitano
Actor | Zatôichi
Takeshi Kitano originally studied to become an engineer, but was thrown out of school for rebellious behavior. He learned comedy, singing and dancing from famed comedian Senzaburô Fukami. Working as a lift boy on a nightclub with such features as comic sketches and striptease dancing, Kitano saw ...
19. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
Director | Doraibu mai kâ
Ryusuke Hamaguchi is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. Hamaguchi, a graduate of Tokyo University and Tokyo University of Arts, attracted attention in his country with the movie Passion (2008), which he shot for his graduation.
Hamaguchi first gained international recognition with the film ...
20. Kore-eda Hirokazu
Director | Manbiki kazoku
Born in Tokyo in 1962. Originally intended to be a novelist, but after graduating from Waseda University in 1987 went on to become an assistant director at T.V. Man Union. Snuck off set to film Mou hitotsu no kyouiku - Ina shogakkou haru gumi no kiroku (1991). His first feature, Maborosi (1995), ...
21. Hiroshi Teshigahara
Director | Suna no onna
Hiroshi Teshigahara was born the son of Sofu Teshigahara who was the founder of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana (flower arrangement). In 1950, he graduated from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in oil painting. In 1958, he became the director of Sogetsu Art Centre and took a ...
22. Kaneto Shindô
Writer | Ichimai no hagaki
Kaneto Shindô was born on April 22, 1912 in Hiroshima, Japan. He was a writer and director, known for Postcard (2010), The Naked Island (1960) and A Last Note (1995). He was married to Nobuko Otowa and Miyo Shindo. He died on May 29, 2012 in Hiroshima, Japan.
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