Nobuo Nakagawa

Nobuo Nakagawa 中川 信夫 Nakagawa Nobuo April 18 1905 June 17 1984 was a Japanese film director most famous for the stylized folk taleinfluenced horror films he made in the 1950s and 1960s Born in Kyoto Nakagawa was early on influenced by proletarian literature and wrote amateur film reviews for the Kinema Junpō film magazine He joined Makino Film Productions in 1929 as an assistant director and worked under Masahiro Makino When that studio went bankrupt in 1932 he switched to Utaemon Ichikawas production company and made his debut as a director in 1934 with Yumiya Hachiman Ken He later moved to Toho where he made comedies starring Enoken and even documentaries during the war It was at Shintoho after the war that he became known for his cinematic adaptations of Japanese Kaidan especially his masterful version of Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan in 1959 To Western audiences his most famous film is Jigoku 1960 which he also cowrote The film was released on DVD by the Criterion Collection in 2006 He also filmed many Kaidan for television His last film was 1982s Kaidan Ikiteiru Koheiji