Minoru Inuzuka

Minoru Inuzuka
Born	February 15, 1901 Tokyo, Japan
Died	September 17, 2007 (aged 106)
Nationality	Japanese
Occupation	Film director, screenwriter

Minoru Inuzuka (犬塚 稔 Inuzuka Minoru, 15 February 1901 – 17 September 2007) was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. Starting out as a screenwriter at Shochiku in 1924, he also participated in the production of Teinosuke Kinugasa's A Page of Madness.^[1] When Chōjirō Hayashi (later known as Kazuo Hasegawa) became a jidaigeki star at Shochiku, Inuzuka directed many of his films. After World War II, Inuzuka returned to specializing in screenplays and was known for his scripts for the Zatoichi series. He published his autobiography in 2002,^[2] and died in 2007 at the age of 106.^[3] When he died, he was called the last surviving director to have directed a silent film in the 1920s.^[4] Inuzuka wrote scripts for over 150 films and directed over 50.^[3]

Selected filmography

As director

• Chigo no kenpō (稚児の剣法) (1927)
• The Spell of the Sand Painting (砂絵呪縛 Sunae Shibari) (1927)

As screenwriter

• A Page of Madness (狂った一頁 Kurutta Ichipeiji) (1926).
• Tsukigata Hanpeita: Hana no maki; Arashi no maki (月形半平太 花の巻 嵐の巻) (1956)
• The Tale of Zatoichi (座頭市物語 Zatōichi monogatari) (1962)
• New Tale of Zatoichi (新座頭市物語 Shin Zatōichi monogatari) (1963)
• Zatoichi on the Road (座頭市喧嘩旅 Zatōichi kenka-tabi) (1963)

References

1. Gerow, Aaron (2008). A Page of Madness: Cinema and Modernity in 1920s Japan. Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan. pp. 26–28. ISBN 9781929280513.
2. Inuzuka, Minoru (2002). Eiga wa kagerō no gotoku. Tokyo: Sōshisha. ISBN 479421104X.
3. "Kyakuhonka, eiga kantoku no Inuzuka Minoru-san shikyo". Asahi shinbun. 25 September 2007. Retrieved 24 April 2012.
4. "RIP Minoru Inuzuka". The Bioscope. Retrieved 24 April 2012.

External links

• Minoru Inuzuka at the Internet Movie Database
• Inuzuka Minoru at the Japanese Movie Database (Japanese)