Background
Masahiro Makino was born in Kyoto, the eldest son of the film director and producer Shozo Makino, who is often called the father of Japanese cinema.
Masahiro Makino was born in Kyoto, the eldest son of the film director and producer Shozo Makino, who is often called the father of Japanese cinema.
As a boy Masahiro Makino began acting in films before debuting as a film director in 1926 at age 18. He left Doshisha University without graduating.
After the war, Masahiro Makino helmed such popular jidaigeki series as "Jirocho Sangokushi" and such ninkyo eiga series as "Nihon Kyokaku-den". He directed his last film in 1972, the retirement film for Junko Fuji, completing a filmography that totaled over 260 films and included films of many genres.
His critically acclaimed nihilistic jidaigeki such as Roningai (1928) made him one of the top Japanese film directors, but his way of shooting films quickly also earned him detractors. For instance, the total time it took to shoot the 1936 film "Edo no Ka Osho" was only 28 hours. The critic Sadao Yamane, however, has argued that this fast filming practice also contributed to Makino's speedy, rhythmic film style. Rhythm and tempo are important to his films, and so in his jidaigeki, fight scenes like in Kettō Takadanobaba (1937) could seem like dances, or entire sequences, like in "Awa no Odoriko" (1941), could be filled with dance. He made musicals like Singing Lovebirds (1939) and even his wartime propaganda films like Hanako-san and Ahen senso (both 1943) could have Busby Berkeley-like musical numbers.
His second wife was also an actress, and one of their two daughters became an actress.