Yasujirō Shimazu
Directing
Biography
Yasujirō Shimazu (島津 保次郎, Shimazu Yasujirō, 3 June 1897 – 18 September 1945) was a Japanese film director and screenwriter, and a pioneer of the shōshimin-eiga (common people drama) genre at the Shōchiku studios in pre-World War II Japan. Shimazu was born in Tokyo, the second son of merchant Otojirō Shimazu. His father owned a long-established seaweed business named Kōshū-ya directly in front of the main Mitsukoshi department store in Nihonbashi. Shimazu entered Shōchiku in 1920 after answering an advertisement and began training under Kaoru Osanai. He gave his debut as director in 1921 at Shōchiku's recently established Kamata studio, directing both comedy and melodrama films, often depicting the everyday life of the lower middle classes. Our Neighbor, Miss Yae (1934) and A Brother and His Younger Sister (1939) are regarded as his most exemplary and best films. By the end of the 1930s, he moved to Tōhō studios, where he made some films in cooperation with the Manchuria Film Association. He died of cancer just after the war ended. Many famous directors, such as Heinosuke Gosho, Shirō Toyoda, Kōzaburō Yoshimura, and Keisuke Kinoshita, started their careers as his assistant.
Known For
Pre-war Asakusa was a riotous district of cabarets, dance-halls and brothels - a striking backdrop for Shimazu's story of innocence and experience. Pretty, young Reiko is the new dancer in an infamous theatre troupe, and her fellow performers try to protect her virtue in a land of vice. Meanwhile, an ageing actor wants to be a hero off stage as well as on, and the troupe matriarch Marie has to keep them all together.
The Lights of Asakusa
The three-hour Ai yo jinrui to tomo ni are / Love, Be with Humanity (1931) starts as a satire of alienation in the world of money, develops into a lumberland epic with a forest fire on Sakhalin Island, turns into a tragedy of King Lear dimensions, and manages to amaze the blasé audience with a happy end in the Wild West.
Love, Be with Humanity: Part 2
The three-hour Ai yo jinrui to tomo ni are / Love, Be with Humanity (1931) starts as a satire of alienation in the world of money, develops into a lumberland epic with a forest fire on Sakhalin Island, turns into a tragedy of King Lear dimensions, and manages to amaze the blasé audience with a happy end in the Wild West.
Love, Be with Humanity: Part 1
Set in Qingdao, China, a Japanese company locates an office there and begins work and cooperation with a local Chinese company for business. Many Japanese engineers also move to China, with their families, for the company in order to construct a canal. There are young Chinese resisting the Japanese in this area.
Green Earth
A period piece about the love of a wealthy blind woman, a teacher of koto and shamisen, and her devoted manservant. Based on a novella by Tanizaki Junichiro.
Okoto and Sasuke
A man who works late hours at a deadening job lives together with his wife and his younger sister. The younger sister's a modern girl who's starting to receive romantic attention from one of her co-workers.
A Brother and His Younger Sister
Three men vying for the same job end up chasing the same girl in this comedy-drama from noted Japanese director Yasujiro Shimazu.
The Trio's Engagements
A musical film made for the inauguration of Shochiku's Ofuna Studio, with an all-star cast of the era.
Men vs. Women
Twenty-year-old Yoshiko (Setsuko Hara) and her younger sister Asako (Yōko Yaguchi) struggle to accept changes in their home during the preparations of their widowed father's wedding to his chosen bride, Maki Tsuneko (Sadako Sawamura), who's anxious about her conduct as the bride.
Wedding Day
OSHINO, the beautiful daughter of restaurant owners, is in love with SHIRASAGI the painter. But there is another young man, the son of a moneylender family, who is desperately in love with Oshino...
White Heron
Jyuta, an honest owner of a taxi company, has a younger half-brother who is involved in the yakuza world and doesn’t get along well with his mother. Jyuta tries to correct him…
My Elder Brother
A melodrama about a businessman's relations with the three women in his life.
Family Meeting
No description available.
Nichijô no tatakai
Keitaro is a law student and Yaeko is a high school girl. They are neighbors, and their friendship is starting to develop into something more romantic. Then, Yaeko's sister Kyouko has a breakup with her husband and returns home. Kyouko is clearly interested in Keitaro and Yae becomes anxious.
Our Neighbor, Miss Yae
Part two of two.
Hikari to kage (Kōhen)
No description available.
Reijin
A young student of traditional dance falls in love with a handsome young man who visits the dance school in order to take photographs.
Okayo's Preparedness
The story of a sailor who begins a love affair with a woman he saves from suicide.
First Steps Ashore
Shigeo is an aspiring writer living with his girl friend Minako and hoping for success and a better tomorrow every day. Both live on what Minako earns from working in a café. Shigeo is not happy with the situation and neither is his family who do not approve of Minako. Especially his uncle tries to convince him to leave Minako, even using his influence behind the scenes. Things start to change when Shigeo's sister pays the young couple a visit, being the first member of Shigeo's family to actually get to know Minako in person.
So Goes My Love
Japanese silent film directed by Yasujirô Shimazu, originally released as a two-part movie on December 11, 1931.