Nobuo Nakagawa

Nobuo Nakagawa
Born(1905-04-18)18 April 1905
Kyoto, Japan
Died17 June 1984(1984-06-17) (aged 79)
Tokyo, Japan
Occupation(s)film director, screenwriter, editor
Years active1938 – 1982

Nobuo Nakagawa (中川 信夫, Nakagawa Nobuo, April 18, 1905 – June 17, 1984) was a Japanese film director, most famous for the stylized, folk tale-influenced horror films he made in the 1950s and 1960s.

Career

Born in Kyoto, Nakagawa was early on influenced by proletarian literature and wrote amateur film reviews to the Kinema Junpō film magazine.[1] He joined Makino Film Productions in 1929 as an assistant director and worked under Masahiro Makino.[1][2] When that studio went bankrupt in 1932, he switched to Utaemon Ichikawa's production company and made his debut as a director in 1934 with Yumiya Hachiman Ken.[1][2] He later moved to Toho, where he made comedies starring Enoken and even documentaries during the war.[1] It was at Shintoho after the war that he became known for his cinematic adaptations of Japanese kaidan, especially his masterful version of Tokaido Yotsuya kaidan in 1959.

To Western audiences, his most famous film is Jigoku (1960), which he also co-wrote. The film was released on DVD by the Criterion Collection in 2006.

He also filmed many kaidan for television. His last film was 1982's Kaidan: Ikiteiru Koheiji.

Filmography

(incomplete)

References

  1. ^ a b c d Shigeno, Tatsuhiko (1997). "Nakagawa Nobuo". Nihon eiga jinmei jiten: Kantokuhen. Tokyo: Kinema Junpō. pp. 560–561. ISBN 4-87376-208-1.
  2. ^ a b "Nakagawa Nobuo". Nihon jinmei daijiten+Plus. Kōdansha. Retrieved 23 August 2011.