was a Japanese film director.
Biography Masumura was born in Kōfu, Yamanashi. After graduating from the law department at the University of Tokyo, he worked as an assistant director at the Daiei Film studio. He later returned to university to study philosophy and graduated in 1951. The following year, he won a scholarship allowing him to study film in Italy at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia under Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti.
Masumura returned to Japan in 1953. From 1955, he worked as a second-unit director on films directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, Kon Ichikawa and Daisuke Ito. In 1957, he directed his own first film Kisses, which caused film critic (and future director) Nagisa Ōshima to note, "a powerful irresistible force has arrived in Japanese Cinema." Over the next three decades, he directed 58 films in a variety of genres.
Legacy According to film critic Shigehiko Hasumi, filmmaker Shinji Aoyama had declared Masumura "the most important filmmaker in the history of postwar Japanese cinema."
Filmography Title Year Credited as Director ScreenwriterAssistant directorPrincess Yang Kwei Fei1955Street of Shame1956Punishment Room1956Nihonbashi1956The Crowded Streetcar1957Kisses1957The Blue Sky Maiden1957Warm Current1957The Precipice1958Giants and Toys1958The Lowest Man1958Disobedience1958The Most Valuable Wife1959The Cast-Off1959Beauty the Enemy1959Across the Darkness1959A Woman's Testament (first segment)1960Afraid to Die1960The Woman Who Touched the Legs1960A False Student1960Love and Life1961A Lustful Man1961A Wife Confesses1961The Burdened Sisters1961Stolen Pleasure1962Black Test Car1962A Woman's Life1962The Black Report1963When Women Lie1963Sentimental Mobsters1963Modern Fraud Story: Cheat1964With My Husband's Consent1964Seventeen-year-old Wolf1964Manji1964Super-Express1964Hoodlum Soldier1965Seisaku's Wife1965Irezumi1966Nakano Spy School1966Red Angel (Movie)1966Two Wives1967A Certain Killer1967Just for You1967A Fool's Love1967The Wife of Seishu Hanaoka1967Evil Trio1968The Sex Check1968The House of Wooden Blocks1968One Day at Summer's End1968Blind Beast1969A Thousand Cranes1969Vixen1969Electric Jellyfish1970Ode to the Yakuza1970The Hot Little Girl1970Games1971New Hoodlum Soldier Story: Firing Line1972Music1972Hanzo the Razor:The Snare1973Hanzo the Razor: Who's Got the Gold?1974Akumyo: Notorious Dragon1974Mainline to Terror1975Lullaby of the Earth1976The Love Suicides at Sonezaki1978The Garden of Eden1980For My Daughter's 7th Birthday1982
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