was a Japanese

film studio A film studio (also known as movie studio or simply studio) is a major entertainment company or motion picture company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to make films, which is handled by the production ...

active in the early 1920s. Founded in April 1920 by Ryōzō Asano, the son of

Asano zaibatsu Asano zaibatsu 浅野財閥, one of the major second-tier zaibatsu ( conglomerates) in Japan, was founded in 1887 by Asano Sōichirō 浅野総一郎 with support from Shibusawa Eiichi 渋沢栄一, the founder of the Shibusawa zaibatsu 渋沢財� ...

head

Sōichirō Asano Sōichirō, Soichiro, Souichirou or Sohichiroh is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese basketball player *, founder of Honda Motor Company *, Japanese voice actor *, president of Benesse Corporation *, ...

, it was mostly known as Taikatsu for short. Its origins can be traced back to Tōyō Film (also known as the "Sunrise Film Manufacturing Company"), a venture started in 1918 by Benjamin Brodsky and

Thomas Kurihara was a Japanese actor and film director. Life Thomas Kurihara, birth name Kisaburō Kurihara (栗原喜三郎), was born in Hadano, Kanagawa. Kurihara's father was a wood trader, but he failed in business. Kurihara went to United States an ...

, that Asano ended up supporting. With Kurihara as the main director and

Jun'ichirō Tanizaki was a Japanese author who is considered to be one of the most prominent figures in modern Japanese literature. The tone and subject matter of his work ranges from shocking depictions of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions to subtle por ...

as the literary consultant, Taikatsu was one of two studios founded in 1920 (the other being Shōchiku Kinema) that publicly announced their intention to make "pure films" in line with the

Pure Film Movement The was a trend in film criticism and filmmaking in 1910s and early 1920s Japan that advocated what were considered more modern and cinematic modes of filmmaking. Critics in such magazines as '' Kinema Record'' and '' Kinema Junpo'' complained th ...

. It established an actors school and began production with ''

Amateur Club An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, self-taught, user-generated, DIY, and hobbyist. History His ...

'', a film directed by Kurihara and scripted by Tanizaki that was strongly influenced by American cinema. Other important works include '' A Serpent's Lust'', another Kurihara-Tanizaki collaboration based on the same story as ''

Ugetsu , is a 1953 Japanese historical drama and fantasy film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi starring Masayuki Mori and Machiko Kyō. It is based on two stories in Ueda Akinari's 1776 book of the same name, combining elements of the ''jidaigeki'' (peri ...

'' by

Kenji Mizoguchi was a Japanese film director and screenwriter, who directed about one hundred films during his career between 1923 and 1956. His most acclaimed works include ''The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums'' (1939), ''The Life of Oharu'' (1952), ''Uget ...

. The Taikatsu studio was located in

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...

, below the Bluff and the Foreigner's Cemetery (a memorial tablet currently marks the site). Taikatsu did not last long, since it did not have enough theaters to recoup the costs of production and of importing American films. Its production division was taken over by Shōchiku in 1922, even though the company lasted a few more years as an exhibition business. A number of important film figures emerged from Taikatsu, including the directors

Tomu Uchida , born Tsunejirō Uchida on 26 April 1898, was a Japanese film director. The stage name "Tomu" translates to “spit out dreams”. Early career Uchida started out at the Taikatsu studio in the early 1920s, but came to prominence at Nikkatsu, ada ...

and

Buntarō Futagawa was a pioneering Japanese film director and writer. So far, only two of his works have been released on DVD: ''Orochi'' ( ja, 雄呂血, ''The Serpent'', 1925) and the short film ''Backward Flow'' ( ja, 逆流, ''Gyakuryū'', 1924). As a writer ...

and the actors

Tokihiko Okada (February 18, 1903 – January 16, 1934) was a silent film star in Japan during the 1920s and early 1930s. A native of Tokyo, he first started at the Taikatsu studio and later he was a leading player for Japanese directors such as Yasujirō ...

Ureo Egawa was a Japanese actor active from the 1920s to the 1960s. Career Egawa was born in Kanagawa Prefecture to a Japanese mother and a German father. His name "Ureo" is a Japanification of his German name "Willy". He joined the Taikatsu film studi ...

and Atsushi Watanabe. Otohiko Matsukata, who served as a director, later became the president of Nikkatsu.

Notes

Japanese film studios Mass media in Yokohama {{film-studio-stub