Masaki Kobayashi

Kobayashi Masaki

  • Name: Kobayashi Masaki
  • Native name: 小林正樹
  • Nationality: Japanese
  • Gender: Male
  • Born: February 14, 1916
  • Died: October 4, 1996
Masaki Kobayashi was a Japanese film director, best known for the epic trilogy The Human Condition (1959–1961), the samurai film Seppuku (1962), and Ghost Stories (1964).

Kobayashi studied ancient oriental arts and philosophy. Kobayashi embarked on a career in film in 1941 when he entered Shochiku Studios as an apprentice director, but his career was almost immediately interrupted when he was drafted into the army and sent to Manchuria.

Kobayashi regarded himself as a pacifist. His way of resisting was to refuse promotion to a rank higher than private. He spent time as a prisoner of war in an Okinawa camp. After his release, in 1946, he returned to Shochiku as assistant to the director Keisuke Kinoshita.

Kobayashi was a second cousin of the actress and director Kinuyo Tanaka. Edit Biography
Screenwriter
Year Title Type Rating
2000 Dora-heita
Movie
6.4
1949 A Broken Drum
Movie
6.0
Director
Year Title Type Rating
1975 Fossil
Movie
7.0
1971 Inn of Evil
Movie
7.3
1968 Hymn to a Tired Man
Movie
6.0
1967 Samurai Rebellion
Movie
8.0
1964 Kwaidan
Movie
7.6
1962 Harakiri
Movie
8.3
1962 The Inheritance
Movie
7.2
1957 Kuroi Kawa
Movie
7.1
1956 Anata Kaimasu
Movie
6.8
1956 Fountainhead
Movie
6.0
1956 The Thick-Walled Room
Movie
7.6
1955 Beautiful Days
Movie
0.0
1954 Somewhere Beneath the Wide Sky
Movie
7.4
1953 It Springs In My Heart
Movie
6.0
1952 Youth of the Son
Movie
0.0
Screenwriter & Director
Year Title Type Rating
1985 Family Without a Dinner Table
Movie
8.0
1983 Tokyo Trial
Movie
0.0
1961 The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer
Movie
8.3
1959 The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity
Movie
8.1
1959 The Human Condition I: No Greater Love
Movie
8.1
1954 Three Loves
Movie
0.0
Movie
Year Title Role Rating
1979 Peaman 80
Japanese Movie, 1979,
Bank Clerk (Guest Role)
Bank Clerk
Guest Role
0.0
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Kobayashi Masaki

Masaki Kobayashi
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Details

  • First Name: Masaki
  • Family Name: Kobayashi
  • Native name: 小林正樹
  • Nationality: Japanese
  • Gender: Male
  • Born: February 14, 1916
  • Died: October 4, 1996

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