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Demon of Mount Oe (1960)
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New Tale of Zatoichi (1963)
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Zatoichi the Fugitive (1963)
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Nemuri Kyoshiro 1: The Chinese Jade (1963)
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Shinobi No Mono 4: Siege (1964)
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Zatoichi's Vengeance (1966)
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The Betrayal (1966)
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Nemuri Kyoshiro 10: Hell Is a Woman (1968)
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The Haunted Castle (1969)
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Tokuzo Tanaka learned his craft under two of the greatest sensei imaginable: Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi. His early resume glows with the credentials of having served as assistant director on Rashomon, Ugetsu and Sansho the Bailiff. Tanaka's own directorial career was not so prestigious, but hell, whose would be?
Tanaka became more of a genre-flick journeyman under contract to Daiei Studios, a talented and reliable artisan of chambara, yakuza films and horror movies. He contributed solid episodes to the Zatoichi series and inaugurated the Nemuri Kyoshiro films. Tanaka's personal masterpiece was The Betrayal starring Raizo Ichikawa, an outstanding "cruel jidai-geki" distinguished by one of the biggest and most brutal swordfights ever filmed.
The Filmmakers
