Nakagawa Nobuo

Nakagawa Nobuo (中川信夫) was born on April 18, 1905. Nakagawa Nobuo movies and tv shows: Snake Woman’s Curse 1968 (Japan), Jigoku 1960 (Japan), Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan 1959 (Japan), A Wicked Woman 1958 (Japan), The Ghost of Kasane Swamp 1957 (Japan)...

Born in Kyoto, Nakagawa was early on influenced by proletarian literature and wrote amateur film reviews to 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 Ichikawa's 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 co-wrote. The film was released on DVD by the Criterion Collection in 2006.

He also filmed many kaidan for television. His last film was 1982's Kaidan: Ikiteiru Koheiji. (Source: Wikipedia)