Born in Gifu in 1931, Masahiro Shinoda worked as an assistant to Yasujiro Ozu at Shochiku and became a leading figure of the Japanese New Wave. His films often turn on a loner, a stylised setting and the music of Tōru Takemitsu. Pale Flower (1964) is a noir about a yakuza who falls for a gambler's daughter. Double Suicide (1969) retells a puppet-theatre tragedy with black-clad stagehands moving through the scenes. He also made the historical drama Assassination. In 2003 he made his last film, Spy Sorge, and retired.
Filmography
- Pale Flower (1964)
- Assassination (1964)
- Double Suicide (1969)
- Silence (1971) (1971)
- Under the Cherry Blossoms (1975)
- Gonza the Spearman (1986)
- Spy Sorge (2003)