, also known by his street name , was a Japanese film director who primarily worked in popular genres like the

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 ...

. Mori directed over 100 films in his life.

Career

Born in

Ehime Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Ehime Prefecture has a population of 1,342,011 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 5,676 km2 (2,191 sq mi). Ehime Prefecture borders Kagawa Prefecture to the northeast, Tok ...

, Mori graduated from Kyoto University before joining

Nikkatsu is a Japanese entertainment company known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio, founded in 1912 during the silent film era. The name ''Nikkatsu'' amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally ...

's Uzumasa studio in 1933. A favorite of the producer

Masaichi Nagata was a Japanese businessman and served as president of Daiei Film. The self-proclaimed creator of Gamera, he produced the kaiju's second film '' Gamera vs. Barugon'', with the remainder of the Showa ''Gamera'' films produced instead by his son H ...

, he followed him to Daiichi Eiga and

Shinkō Kinema was a Japanese film studio active in the 1930s. Background Shinkō was established in September 1931 out of the remnants of the Teikoku Kinema studio with the help of Shōchiku capital. The historian Jun'ichirō Tanaka writes that the studio w ...

before getting a chance to direct in 1936 with ''Adauchi hizakurige''. When Shinkō Kinema was merged with other studios to form

Daiei Film Daiei Film Co. Ltd. ( Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ''Daiei Eiga Kabushiki Kaisha'') was a Japanese film studio. Founded in 1942 as Dai Nippon Film Co., Ltd., it was one of the major studios during the postwar Golden Age of Japanese cinema, producing ...

, Mori became one of Daiei's core directors of genre films, making primarily

samurai film , also commonly spelled "''chambara''", meaning "sword fighting" films,Hill (2002). denotes the Japanese film genre called samurai cinema in English and is roughly equivalent to Western and swashbuckler films. ''Chanbara'' is a sub-category of '' ...

s with stars such as Raizō Ichikawa,

Kazuo Hasegawa was a Japanese film and stage actor. He appeared in over 300 films between 1927 and 1963. Career Born to a sake brewing family in Kyoto, he first appeared on stage at age five in a theater run by his family as a side business. In 1918, he beca ...

, and

Shintaro Katsu was a Japanese actor, singer, and filmmaker. He is known for starring in the ''Akumyo'' series, the ''Hoodlum Soldier'' series, and the ''Zatoichi'' series. Life and career Born Toshio Okumura (奥村利夫 ''Okumura Toshio'') on 29 Novemb ...

. While not an

auteur An auteur (; , 'author') is an artist with a distinctive approach, usually a film director whose filmmaking control is so unbounded but personal that the director is likened to the "author" of the film, which thus manifests the director's unique ...

, he was a solid craftsman in the genre. After Daiei went bankrupt in the early 1970s, Mori continued directing ''jidaigeki'' on television. He directed over 130 films in his career. The

National Film Center The is an independent administrative institution and one of Japan's seven national museums of art, which specializes in preserving and exhibiting the film heritage of Japan. In its previous incarnation, it was the National Film Center, which was p ...

in Tokyo did a retrospective of his works in 2011 in celebration of his centenary.

Filmography

Film

Selected filmography

Television

Bibliography

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mori, Kazuo Japanese film directors Samurai film directors 1911 births 1989 deaths People from Matsuyama, Ehime Kyoto University alumni