Kinuyo Tanaka made a big progression across the course of her career, moving from sweet-faced ingenue to Japan's first female director.
Tanaka as "the soda shop girl" in Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth?
Kinuyo Tanaka performed in light operas as a pre-teen before getting into the movies at the age of 14.
In her late twenties, she became involved with noted silent film director Hiroshi Shimizu. They never legally married, but they lived as commonlaw spouses for a few years. Shimizu happened to be a close friend of Ozu, who himself was just starting to direct features in the late 1920's.
In 1929, Tanaka played "the wife" in the mostly-lost I Graduated, But... for Ozu. Two years later, she co-starred in Japan's first talkie, The Neighbor's Wife and Mine (1931).
She played various supporting roles in films throughout the early 30's, including two Ozu silent films (I Flunked, But... and Young Miss). She moved up to more consistent featured supporting and co-starring roles in '32 and '33. You can see her stock rising in the parts she plays in Ozu's Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth?, Woman of Tokyo, and especially Dragnet Girl.
She was extremely active in many films throughout the 30's and onward, but she took a short hiatus during WWII, starting in 1942.
She picked back up acting in 1944. She worked with Ozu again a few years later on 1948's A Hen in the Wind, and then once again in 1950's The Munekata Sisters (neither of which is available on DVD in the US).
Her acting roles in sound films from this period are much better known than her silent work, especially the fifteen films she made with Kenji Mizoguchi. Among that stretch of films, the ones best-known to Western audiences are Ugetsu and Sansho the Bailiff. Both of them are available on DVD in the US from Criterion (a Sansho Blu-ray is coming on 26 February 2013). They're both tremendous films that I give my highest recommendation.
Takada's history-making claim to fame is that she became Japan's first female film director in 1953 with Love Letter. She would end up making only six films (the last one was 1962's Love Under the Crucifix), but that's progress when you consider the state of Japanese feminism in the 1950's.
Her collaboration with Mizoguchi ended abruptly when he voted against Nikkatsu hiring her on for her second directing gig. I've yet to learn why he did this, whether out of sexism or...something else. Regardless, she ended up getting her second film off the ground eventually, and without the approving vote of an establish male power player.
From Dragnet Girl
She continued acting while directing her features.
Her final film with Ozu was 1958's Equinox Flower. She later appeared in Akira Kurosawa's Red Beard (1965), and continued acting until the year before her death in 1977.
Discovering Ozu articles related to Kinuyo Tanaka
3: From Graduating to Flunking
The Daily Grab 7 & 8: Flunking Upward
4: Wives, Crime, Comedy, and Beards
5: A Farewell to Youth
6: Fallen Women and The Dragnet Girl
Discovering Ozu is an ongoing series of articles designed to introduce curious cinephiles to the work of Japanese master filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu.
Essential sources include: David Bordwell's book Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema, Donald Richie's Ozu: His Life and Films, and the various booklets and featurettes produced by The Criterion Collection. Quick reference often comes from definitive Ozu fansite "Ozu-san".
If sharing or discussing this article or series on Twitter, please use hashtag #DiscoveringOzu
New to Discovering Ozu? Start at the beginning.