Shōzō Makino (牧野省三, ''Makino Shōzō'', September 22, 1878,

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

– July 25, 1929) was a Japanese

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...

film producer A film producer is a person who oversees film production. Either employed by a production company or working independently, producers plan and coordinate various aspects of film production, such as selecting the script, coordinating writing, di ...

and businessman who is regarded as a pioneering director of

Japanese film The has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world; as of 2021, it was the fourth largest by number of feature films produced. In 2011 Japan produced 411 feature films that ea ...

. In addition, all four of his sons, including

Masahiro Makino was a Japanese film director. He directed more than 260 films, primarily in the chanbara and yakuza genres. His real name was , but he took the stage name Masahiro, the kanji for which he changed multiple times (including , , and ). Career Masa ...

and

Sadatsugu Matsuda (まつださだつぐ) (2 November 1906 – 20 January 2003, Tokyo, Japan) was a Japanese film director. He directed films from 1925 to 1969. His name is also incorrectly spelled as Sadaji Matsuda. He was the son of producer and directo ...

, went into the film business as either directors or producers, and his grandchildren include the actors

Masahiko Tsugawa , born Masahiko Katō (加藤雅彦 ''Katō Masahiko''; January 2, 1940 – August 4, 2018) was a Japanese actor and director. Career Tsugawa was born January 2, 1940, in Kyoto, Japan. After acting as a child, he made his major debut at the age ...

and

Hiroyuki Nagato , stage name of Akio Kato (加藤晃夫), was a Japanese actor. He starred in ''Season of the Sun'', '' Endless Desire'', '' My Second Brother'', '' Stolen Desire'', and '' Sukeban Deka'', and ''Yo-Yo Girl Cop''. Life and career Nagato was bo ...

. Actress

Yoko Minamida Yoko may refer to: People * Yoko (name), a Japanese feminine given name; variants include Yōko and Yohko * Yoko Gushiken (具志堅用高, born 1955), Japanese professional boxer * Yoko Taro (横尾太郎, born 1970), Japanese video game di ...

is a granddaughter-in-law.

Career

Makino was born in

on September 22, 1878. His mother ran a theater, and his association with movies began when the motion picture producer Einosuke Yokota of

Yokota Shōkai was a Japanese film studio active in the early years of cinema in Japan. Its origins can be traced back to when Einosuke Yokota received one of the first Lumiere cinematograph machines in Japan from Inabata Katsutarō to conduct traveling ex ...

asked for his help in filming period films. Shozo discovered actor

Matsunosuke Onoe , sometimes known as Medama no Matchan (''"Eyeballs" Matsu''), was a Japanese actor. His birth name is Tsuruzo Nakamura. He is sometimes credited as Yukio Koki, Tamijaku Onoe, or Tsunusaburo Onoe, and as a kabuki artist he went by the name Tsuru ...

working in an itinerant

kabuki is a classical form of Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is thought to ...

troupe and enlisted him into becoming Japan's first film star. He directed over 60 Matsunosuke films a year in the early 1910s, most if not all short films. In addition to creating the unique genre of the Japanese period film, Makino also incorporated trick camera techniques and a myriad of other cinematic methods of expression into his films. In 1919, he founded the Mikado Company and began to produce educational films. He later founded an independent production company,

Makino Film Productions Makino Film Productions was a successful early film producing company active in Japanese cinema in the 1920s and 1930s. It was founded by the pioneering film director Shozo Makino in 1923. Makino produced many prominent films of the early era, and ...

, and from 1923, continued as a director and as producer. Makino Film Productions turned out many successful movies also made by several other directors and actors. In 1928, he directed the epic, '' Jitsuroku Chushingura'' (''True Record of the Forty-Seven Ronin''), which coincided with his 50th birthday. He died on July 25, 1929.

Family

He had a total of five children. Two of his sons,

(1906–2003) and

(1908–1993) were also film directors. Another, Mitsuo Makino, was a film producer, and another Shinzō Makino, also worked as a director (his wife was the actress

Chikako Miyagi Chikako (written: , or ) is a feminine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *Chikako, Princess Kazu *Fujiwara no Chikako (藤原親子), Japanese noblewoman and waka poet *, Japanese snowboarder *, Japanese female volleybal ...

). Masahiro married the actress

Yukiko Todoroki Yukiko Todoroki ( ''Todoroki Yukiko''; September 11, 1917 – May 11, 1967) was a Japanese actress. Her real name was Tsuruko Nishiyama. She participated in the Takarazuka Revue. At Takarazuka, she was known not by her real name, but by the stage ...

and their son,

Masayuki Makino Masayuki (written: , ,, , , , , , , , , , , , , , or ) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese animator and director *, Japanese actor *, Japanese baseball player and manager *, Japanese politician *, ...

, is the head of the

Okinawa Actor's School is a school in Ginowan, Okinawa which has another branch in Osaka. It was founded in 1983 by Masayuki Makino who became the first principal of the school. Notable alumni * Namie Amuro * Hitoe Arakaki * Rina Chinen * D&D * Da Pump * Folder 5 * ...

. Shōzō's daughter,

Tomoko Makino Tomoko (ともこ, トモコ) is a female Japanese given name. Like many Japanese names, Tomoko can be written using different kanji characters and can mean: * 友子 - "friendly child" * 知子 - "knowing child" * 智子 - "wise child" * 朋� ...

, married the actor

Kunitarō Sawamura was a Japanese kabuki and film actor. Career Sawamura, whose original name was Yūichi Katō, was born in Tokyo to the kabuki actor Denzō Takeshiba. He studied acting under Sōjūrō Sawamura VII before taking the stage name Kunitarō Sawamura I ...

, and is the mother to actors

and

, both of whom married famous actresses,

Yukiji Asaoka was a Japanese singer and an actress from Chūō, Tokyo. She was the daughter of a famous Japanese painter of shin hanga style prints, Shinsui Itō, and her second husband was actor Masahiko Tsugawa. Asaoka was in the Takarazuka Revue from 1952 ...

and

Yōko Minamida was a Japanese actress. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in November 2008, and a television documentary was made about her condition and the efforts of her husband, actor Hiroyuki Nagato, to care for her. She died in Tokyo. Select ...

respectively. Kunitarō's brother and sister are the actors

Daisuke Katō was a Japanese actor. He appeared in over 200 films, including Akira Kurosawa's ''Seven Samurai'', ''Rashomon'', ''Yojimbo'', and ''Ikiru''. He also worked repeatedly for noted directors such as Yasujirō Ozu, Mikio Naruse and Kenji Mizoguchi. ...

and

Sadako Sawamura was a Japanese actress. She appeared in more than 140 films between 1935 and 1985. Her brothers were the actors Daisuke Katō and Kunitarō Sawamura. Her autobiography, ''My Asakusa'', has been translated into English. Sawamura married fellow Ja ...

Filmography

* 1914 ''

Kōchiyama Sōshun was a historical Japanese person. A servant at Edo Castle in Japan, he became a model for characters in ''kōdan'', ''kabuki'', film and television. Works of fiction sometimes write the name with a different final character as 河内山宗俊 or ...

'' * 1921 '' Jiraiya the Hero'' (''Gōketsu Jiraiya'') * 1928 '' Jitsuroku Chushingura'' (True Record of the Forty-seven Ronin)

References

External links

* Japanese film directors Samurai film directors Japanese film producers Japanese cinematographers Japanese businesspeople People from Kyoto 1878 births 1929 deaths 20th-century Japanese screenwriters {{Japan-business-bio-stub