14 Facts About Masahiro Shinoda

Masahiro Shinoda was a Japanese film director, whose career spanned over four decades and covered a wide range of genres and styles.

Masahiro Shinoda was one of the central figures of the Japanese New Wave during the 1960s and 1970s.

Masahiro Shinoda directed films for Shochiku Studio from 1960 to 1965, before turning to independent cinema from 1966 onward.

Masahiro Shinoda drew on traditional Japanese fiction and theater and some of his films bear the influence of Kenji Mizoguchi, whom he admired.

Masahiro Shinoda joined the Shochiku Studio in 1953 as an assistant director, where he worked on films by such directors as Yasujiro Ozu.

Masahiro Shinoda debuted as a director in 1960 with One-Way Ticket for Love, which he scripted.

Masahiro Shinoda's focus on youth and the cultural and political turmoil of 1960s Japan made him a central figure in the Shochiku New Wave alongside Nagisa Oshima and Yoshishige Yoshida.

Masahiro Shinoda worked in a variety of genres, from the yakuza film to the samurai film, but he particularly became known for his focus on socially marginal characters and for an interest in traditional Japanese theater, which found its greatest expression in Double Suicide, in which actors are manipulated like Bunraku puppets.

Masahiro Shinoda was interested in sports, directing a documentary on the 1972 Winter Olympics.

Also known for his collaborations with such artists as Shuji Terayama and Toru Takemitsu, Masahiro Shinoda left Shochiku in 1965 to form his own production company, Hyogensha.

Masahiro Shinoda retired from directing after the release of Spy Sorge, a biopic on the life of Richard Sorge, in 2003.

Masahiro Shinoda won the 1991 Japan Academy Prize for Director of the Year for Childhood Days.

Masahiro Shinoda won the Izumi Kyoka Prize in 2010 for a novel.

Masahiro Shinoda died of pneumonia on March 25,2025, at the age of 94.