is a Japanese actress. During her career spanning 70 years, she has worked with directors like

Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker who List of works by Akira Kurosawa, directed 30 feature films in a career spanning six decades. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the History of film, history of cinema ...

Kenji Mizoguchi was a Japanese filmmaker who directed roughly 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), '' Ugetsu'' (1953), and ' ...

Yasujirō Ozu was a Japanese filmmaker. He began his career during the era of silent films, and his last films were made in colour in the early 1960s. Ozu first made a number of short comedies, before turning to more serious themes in the 1930s. The most pr ...

and

Mikio Naruse was a Japanese filmmaker who directed 89 films spanning the period 1930 to 1967. Naruse is known for imbuing his films with a bleak and pessimistic outlook. He made primarily Shoshimin-eiga, shōshimin-eiga ("common people drama") films with f ...

, appearing in films such as ''

Tokyo Story is a 1953 Japanese drama film directed by Yasujirō Ozu and starring Chishū Ryū and Chieko Higashiyama, about an aging couple who travel to Tokyo to visit their grown children. Upon release, it did not immediately gain international reco ...

'', ''

Sansho the Bailiff is a 1954 Japanese period film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi based on a 1915 short story of the same name by Mori Ōgai (translated as "Sanshō the Steward" in English), which in turn was based on a (oral lore) appearing in written form in the ...

'', '' The Bad Sleep Well'', '' Mothra'', and '' High and Low''.

Biography

Kagawa was born in Asō (currently Namegata),

Ibaraki Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Ibaraki Prefecture has a population of 2,828,086 (1 July 2023) and has a geographic area of . Ibaraki Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to the north, ...

, and graduated from Tokyo Metropolitan Tenth High School for Girls in 1949. She was discovered in the "New Face Nomination" contest run by the '' Tokyo Shimbun'' in 1949 and gave her film debut the following year in ''Mado kara tobidase''. A prolific actress, she collaborated with directors like

Kinuyo Tanaka was a Japanese actress and film director. She had a career lasting over 50 years with more than 250 acting credits, but was best known for her 15 films with director Kenji Mizoguchi, such as ''The Life of Oharu'' (1952) and ''Ugetsu'' (1953). W ...

, Hiroshi Shimizu, Shiro Toyoda, Kozaburo Yoshimura, Ishiro Honda, Yuzo Kawashima,

Hiroshi Inagaki was a Japanese filmmaker who worked on over 100 films in a career spanning over five decades. He is one of the most successful and critically acclaimed filmmakers in the history of Japanese cinema, having directed several ''jidaigeki'' epics s ...

and Hirokazu Koreeda. Kagawa married in 1963. After appearing in Kurosawa's '' Red Beard'' (1965), she followed her husband, a reporter for the ''

Yomiuri Shimbun The is a Japanese newspaper published in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Fukuoka, and other major Japanese cities. It is one of the five major newspapers in Japan; the other four are ''The Asahi Shimbun'', the ''Chunichi Shimbun'', the ''Ma ...

'', to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

. Upon her return, she acted in television dramas until she appeared again on the big screen in Satsuo Yamamoto's ''

Karei-naru Ichizoku is a 1973 novel by Toyoko Yamasaki. It has been adapted into a film in 1974 and then three times as a television series in 1974, 2007, and 2021. Plot Set in the post-World War II climate of the 1960s in Kobe, the show explores the struggle for p ...

'' (1974). In 2011, the

National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo The , also known as MOMAT, is the foremost museum collecting and exhibiting modern Japanese art. The museum, in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan, is known for its collection of 20th-century art and includes Western-style and ''Nihonga'' artists. It has a bra ...

, honored her long career and contribution to Japanese cinema with an exhibition dedicated to her.

Selected filmography

Films

* ''Tokyo Heroine'' (1950) * '' Man in the Storm'' (1950) * ''

Mother A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of ges ...

'' (1952) * ''

Lightning Lightning is a natural phenomenon consisting of electrostatic discharges occurring through the atmosphere between two electrically charged regions. One or both regions are within the atmosphere, with the second region sometimes occurring on ...

'' (1952) * ''

'' (1953) * '' Love Letter'' (1953) * ''

'' (1954) * '' The Crucified Lovers'' (1954) * '' Onna no Koyomi'' (1954) * ''The Shiinomi School'' * '' Christ in Bronze'' (1956) * '' A Cat, Shozo, and Two Women'' (1956) * '' Shūu'' (1956) * '' An Osaka Story'' (1957) * ''

The Lower Depths ''The Lower Depths'' (, literally: ''At the bottom'') is a play by Russian dramatist Maxim Gorky written in 1902 and produced by the Moscow Arts Theatre on December 18, 1902, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski. It became his first ma ...

'' (1957) * ''A Holiday in Tokyo'' (1958) * '' Anzukko'' (1958) * ''

The Three Treasures is a 1959 Japanese epic film, epic List of religious films, religious fantasy film directed by Hiroshi Inagaki, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. Produced by Toho as their celebratory thousandth film, it was the most expensive Japanese fil ...

'' (1959) * '' The Bad Sleep Well'' (1960) * '' Mothra'' (1961) * '' The Story of Osaka Castle'' (1961) * '' Girls of the Night'' (1961) * '' High and Low'' (1963) * '' Red Beard'' (1965) * ''

'' (1974) * '' Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director'' (1975) * '' Tora-san's Dream of Spring'' (1979) * '' Madadayo'' (1993) * '' After Life'' (1998) * '' Letters from the Mountains'' (2002) * '' Mifune: The Last Samurai'' (2016) * ''Tenshi no Iru Toshokan'' (2017) * ''Shimamori'' (2022) * ''The Pass: Last Days of the Samurai'' (2022)

Television

* '' Hana no Shōgai'' (NHK, 1963) * ''Kasuga no Tsubone'' (NHK, 1989) * '' In This Corner of the World'' (TBS, 2018)

Honours

* Medal with Purple Ribbon (1998) * Kinuyo Tanaka Award (1993) *

Order of the Rising Sun The is a Japanese honors system, Japanese order, established in 1875 by Emperor Meiji. The Order was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese government, created on 10 April 1875 by decree of the Council of State. The badge feat ...

(2004) * FIAF Award (2011)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kagawa, Kyoko 1931 births Living people Japanese film actresses Japanese television actresses 20th-century Japanese actresses 21st-century Japanese actresses Recipients of the Medal with Purple Ribbon Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun, 4th class Actresses from Ibaraki Prefecture