Shōzō Makino (director)

Shōzō Makino
Born	September 22, 1878 Kyoto, Japan
Died	July 25, 1929

Shōzō Makino (マキノ省三, Makino Shōzō, September 22, 1878, Kyoto – July 25, 1929) was a Japanese film director, film producer and businessman who is regarded as a pioneering director of Japanese film. In addition, all four of his sons, including Masahiro Makino and Sadatsugu Matsuda, went into the film business as either directors or producers, and his grandchildren include the actors Masahiko Tsugawa and Hiroyuki Nagato. Actress Yoko Minamida is a granddaughter-in-law.

Makino was born in Kyoto on September 22, 1878. His mother ran a theater, and his association with movies began when the motion picture producer Einosuke Yokota of Yokota Shōkai asked for his help in filming period films. Shozo discovered actor Matsunosuke Onoe working in an itinerant kabuki troupe and enlisted him into becoming Japan's first film star. He directed over 60 Matsunosuke films a year in the early 1910s, most if not all short films.

In addition to creating the unique genre of the Japanese period film, Makino also incorporated trick camera techniques and a myriad of other cinematic methods of expression into his films. In 1919, he founded the Mikado Company and began to produce educational films. He later founded an independent production company, Makino Film Productions, and from 1923, continued as a director and as producer. Makino Film Productions turned out many successful movies also made by several other directors and actors.

In 1928, he directed the epic, Jitsuroku Chushingura (True Record of the Forty-Seven Ronin), which coincided with his 50th birthday. He died on July 25, 1929.

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