Kinuyo Tanaka
Kinuyo Tanaka is a Japanese actor and director who’s career began in the 1920’s. I was finding conflicting dates on her birth but it was either in 1909 or 1910. She is a revered actor with over 100 acting credits according to IMDB.com. Tanaka was a major luminary in Japan. She married and divorced director Hiroshi Shimizu in 1929, and won many awards for her acting abilities. She directed her first of six films titled “Love Letters� in 1953. “Her directing career was the first of any significance for a Japanese woman, and it displayed the same intelligence, taste, and intensity of her acting�, claims one of her biography sites (www.stanford.edu). In 1977 Kinuyo Tanaka died of a brain tumor.
Her directing credits are as follows:
• Onna bakari no yoru 1961
... Girl of Dark
• Ruten no ouhi 1960
... The Wandering Princess
• Oginsama 1960
... Love Under the Crucifix
• Chibusa yo eien nare 1955
... The Eternal Breasts
• Tsuki wa noborinu 1955
... The Moon Has Risen
• Koibumi 1953
... Love Letter
Now here is where my disappointment comes in. I’ve read all these wonderful things about Kinuyo and have see some of her acting on youtube.com, but I cannot find any clips of the movies she has directed. Netflix has even failed me. Netflix! They also only had movies to rent that she acted in. So while it wasn’t difficult to find writing on her life and career, I am having a hard time finding examples of her directing.