Yasuzō Masumura

Yasuzō Masumura
File:Yasuzo Masumura (film director).jpg
Born	(1924-08-25)25 August 1924 Kōfu, Yamanashi, Japan
Died	Japan
Occupation	Film director, screenwriter

Yasuzō Masumura (増村 保造, Masumura Yasuzō, 25 August 1924 – 23 November 1986) was a Japanese film director.

Biography

Masumura was born in Kōfu, Yamanashi. After graduating from the law department at the University of Tokyo, he worked as an assistant director at the Daiei Film studio. He later returned to university to study philosophy and graduated in 1951. The following year, he won a scholarship allowing him to study film in Italy at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia under Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti.

Masumura returned to Japan in 1953. From 1955, he worked as a second-unit director on films directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, Kon Ichikawa and Daisuke Ito. In 1957, he directed his own first film Kisses, which caused film critic (and future director) Nagisa Ōshima to note, "a powerful irresistible force has arrived in Japanese Cinema." Over the next three decades, he directed 58 films in a variety of genres.

Legacy

According to film critic Shigehiko Hasumi, filmmaker Shinji Aoyama had declared Masumura "the most important filmmaker in the history of postwar Japanese cinema."

Filmography

Title	Year	Credited as
		Director	Screenwriter	Assistant director
Princess Yang Kwei Fei	1955			Yes
Street of Shame	1956			Yes
Punishment Room	1956			Yes
Nihonbashi	1956			Yes
The Crowded Streetcar	1957			Yes
Kisses	1957	Yes
The Blue Sky Maiden	1957	Yes
Warm Current	1957	Yes
The Precipice	1958	Yes
Giants and Toys	1958	Yes
The Lowest Man	1958	Yes
Undutiful Street	1958	Yes
The Most Valuable Madam	1959	Yes
The Cast-Off	1959	Yes
Beauty the Enemy	1959	Yes
Across Darkness	1959	Yes
A Woman's Testament (first segment)	1960	Yes
Afraid to Die	1960	Yes
The Woman Who Touched the Legs	1960	Yes
A False Student	1960	Yes
Desperate to Love	1961	Yes
A Lustful Man	1961	Yes
A Wife Confesses	1961	Yes
The Burdened Sisters	1961	Yes
Stolen Pleasure	1962	Yes
Black Test Car	1962	Yes
Life of a Woman	1962	Yes
The Black Report	1963	Yes
When Women Lie	1963	Yes
Band of Pure-Hearted Hoodlums	1963	Yes
Modern Fraud Story: Cheat	1964	Yes
With My Husband's Consent	1964	Yes
Seventeen-year-old Wolf	1964		Yes
Manji	1964	Yes
Super-Express	1964	Yes
Hoodlum Soldier	1965	Yes
Seisaku's Wife	1965	Yes
Irezumi	1966	Yes
Nakano Spy School	1966	Yes
Red Angel	1966	Yes
Two Wives	1967	Yes
A Certain Killer	1967		Yes
Just for You	1967		Yes
A Fool's Love	1967	Yes
The Wife of Seishu Hanaoka	1967	Yes
Evil Trio	1968	Yes
The Sex Check	1968	Yes
The House of Wooden Blocks	1968	Yes
One Day at Summer's End	1968	Yes
Blind Beast	1969	Yes
A Thousand Cranes	1969	Yes
Vixen	1969	Yes
Electric Jellyfish	1970	Yes
Ode to the Yakuza	1970	Yes
The Hot Little Girl	1970	Yes
Games	1971	Yes
New Hoodlum Soldier Story: Firing Line	1972	Yes
Music	1972	Yes
Hanzo the Razor:The Snare	1973	Yes
Hanzo the Razor: Who's Got the Gold?	1974		Yes
Akumyo: Notorious Dragon	1974	Yes
Mainline to Terror	1975	Yes
Lullaby of the Earth	1976	Yes
The Love Suicides at Sonezaki	1978	Yes
The Garden of Eden	1980	Yes
For My Daughter's 7th Birthday	1982	Yes

External links

• Yasuzō Masumura at the Internet Movie Database
• Yasuzō Masumura at the Japanese Movie Database (Japanese)