Yoji Yamada

Yoji Yamada was born in Osaka (Japan), on September 13, 1931. When he was two years old, he moved to Manchuria with his family, due to his father’s work as an engineer. There he remained until the end of World War II, after which he returned to Japan and settled in Yamagata. In 1954, when the future director was 23 years old, he graduated from the University of Tokyo, and that same year he signed for the Shochiku film company. It was in that company where he met and began to master the rudiments of cinematographic art, working as a scriptwriter and assistant director. He worked among others with director Yoshitaro Nomura ( The Sandcastle ).

Yamada made his debut as a director in 1961, with the comedy Nikao no tanin , and throughout his long career of more than fifty years, he has completed an extraordinarily extensive filmography, with close to 80 films as a director and more than a hundred as a screenwriter. He dominates among all his works the comedy genre, of which he became a master. In 1969 he directed the film Tora-san: It’s hard to be a man.. In it began the journey of the singular main character Torajiro, a commercial salesman, clumsy and jinxed, without luck in love, but who is charming for the public. Yamada was so successful with it that he ended up directing a very long series of films with Torajiro as the lead. Specifically, he directed more than… 40 titles!, in an arc of time that goes from 1969 to 1995. The death in 1996 of the actor Kiyoshi Atsumi , who played Torajiro, was the one that put an end to the series.

Apart from the films in the “Tora-san” series, Yamada interspersed a few different titles in his filmography, but they attested to his worth as a filmmaker. Thus, The Yellow Handkerchief of Happiness (1977) stands out, which narrates in a dramatic tone the lives of three characters who meet while on a trip; the leisurely Llanto de primavera (1980), about a man’s relationship with a widow and her son; and Gakko (1994), the first part of a trilogy that narrates the relationships between a magnificent teacher and his different students, some of whom lead very hard lives.

In 2002 the name of Yoji Yamada would cross the borders of his country thanks to the wonderful Twilight of the Samurai , an intimate story about a poor samurai ( Hiroyuki Sanada ) who lives during the last days of feudal Japan, before the advent of the Meiji era, where the values ​​and life of the samurai no longer have a place. Yamada films with narrative wisdom, silences and contemplation, where everyday life is shown to be simple, alive and comforting. A classic story reminiscent of the best John Ford . The film won multiple awards and was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film. In 2004 and 2006 The Hidden Blade and Love & Honor would arrive, the other two films of a master trilogy. They are equally human and formidable films, where the director once again directs his nostalgic gaze towards the virtues that filled the life of the samurai with meaning.

Yamada’s latest notable works have been the dramas Kabei: Our Mother (2008) and Ototo (2010), very well received in his country. And she’s about to release A Family from Tokyo . Yoji Yamada’s prestige in Japan has been endorsed numerous times, as evidenced by the fact that he has been named Director of the Year three times. He has also served as president of the Japan Directors Guild and has received numerous awards at various international festivals. In his 80s, he still occasionally serves as a visiting professor at Ritsumeikan University.