Director Tomu Uchida (1898-1970)
Tomu Uchida is regarded as one of the giants of Japanese cinema, but the number of his films currently available in North American commercial DVD release is zero. In his youth he gave himself the nickname Tomu as a variant on the Anglo name "Tom," which he spelled with kanji characters meaning "to spit out dreams." Uchida had a massively accomplished career in film before World War II, but unfortunately only four of those early works remain completely intact today.
A political activist in Japan's military nationalist movement, Uchida chose to live as an expatriate in Manchuria for ten years following the war. Then he returned home to resume his film career with such classics as Bloody Spear on Mount Fuji and Killing in Yoshiwara, as well as multi-part adaptations of the popular Daibosatsu toge and Musashi Miyamoto jidai-geki staples. Uchida's other films are said to be artistically superior to his genre work, and considering the tremendous quality of those few I have seen, I hope someone gives us Americans a chance to see them all someday.
