Kinugasa Teinosuke

Kinugasa Teinosuke (1896-1982, Mie) ran away from home at the age of seventeenth to join the theatre, where he initially mainly played female roles (oyama). In 1921 he started to direct films and soon played an important role in the rise of the art film in Japan. In 1928 he travelled to Russia, where he met Eisenstein and Pudovkin, and to Germany and France. The influence of this journey can be seen in the editing style and revolutionary themes of his later films. However he soon developed a formal visual style and specialised in historic dramas. One of his best known films is Page of Madness (1926).