was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. He was best known for making
yakuza films at the
Toei Company
() (also styled TOEI) is a Japanese film, television production, and distribution and video game developer and publishing company. Based in Tokyo, Toei owns and operates thirty-four movie theaters across Japan (all but two of them operated by ...
in 1960s.
Biography
Born in
Hyōgo Prefecture,
Kato was the nephew of the film director
Sadao Yamanaka
was a Japanese film director and screenwriter who directed 26 films between 1932 and 1938. He was a contemporary of Yasujirō Ozu, Mikio Naruse and Kenji Mizoguchi and one of the primary figures in the development of the ''jidaigeki'', or histori ...
.
He entered the
Toho
is a Japanese film, theatre production and distribution company. It has its headquarters in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Osaka-based Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group. Outside of Japan, it is best known as the producer ...
studio in 1937 and first began by working on
documentaries
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in term ...
.
He worked as an assistant director to
Akira Kurosawa
was a Japanese filmmaker and painter who directed thirty films in a career spanning over five decades. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Kurosawa displayed a bold, dyna ...
in ''
Rashomon
is a 1950 Jidaigeki psychological thriller/crime film directed and written by Akira Kurosawa, working in close collaboration with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa. Starring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyō, Masayuki Mori, and Takashi Shimura ...
''.
After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
he switched to making
jidaigeki
is a genre of film, television, video game, and theatre in Japan. Literally meaning "period dramas", they are most often set during the Edo period of Japanese history, from 1603 to 1868. Some, however, are set much earlier—'' Portrait of H ...
.
Style and influences
Kevin Thomas of ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'' noted that Kato has been compared with
Budd Boetticher and
Samuel Fuller.
Selected filmography
* ''
Brave Records of the Sanada Clan'' (1963)
* ''
Kaze no Bushi'' (1964)
* ''Bakumatsu zankoku monogatari (AKA Cruel Story of the Shogunate's Downfall)'' (1964)
* ''Meiji Kyokyakuden: Sandaime Shumei'' (1965)
* ''Kutsukake Tokijiro: Yukyo Ippiki'' (1966)
* ''By a Man's Face Shall You Know Him'' (1966)
* ''I, the Executioner'' (1968)
* ''Red Peony Gambler: Hanafuda Shobu'' (1969)
* ''Red Peony Gambler: Oryu Sanjo'' (1970)
* ''Miyamoto Musashi'' (1973)
* ''Ondekoza'' (1981)
References
External links
*
*
1916 births
1985 deaths
Japanese film directors
Samurai film directors
{{Japan-film-director-stub