Born of a merger between two film companies in 1951, Toei is one of Japan’s leading film producers, distributors and exhibitors, with a wide range of media businesses. Starting in the 1950s with samurai swashbucklers and continuing in the 1960s with actioners featuring Japan’s native gangsters, the yakuza, Toei gained a reputation as maker of entertainment for the masses, not the critics.
Rival Toho may have had Kurosawa Akira and Shochiku, Ozu Yasujiro — both world-class auteurs — but Toei had Ishii Teruo, whose “Abashiri Prison” action series (1965-’72) made a major star of the strong-but-silent Takakura Ken, and Fukasaku Kinji, whose “Battles Without Honor and Humanity” series (1973-’74) was a groundbreaking re-creation of a real-life yakuza war. Neither won many awards or much international recognition at the time, but their contributions helped make Toei a box office powerhouse. Beginning in the 1950s and continuing in the 1960s as the diffusion
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Rival Toho may have had Kurosawa Akira and Shochiku, Ozu Yasujiro — both world-class auteurs — but Toei had Ishii Teruo, whose “Abashiri Prison” action series (1965-’72) made a major star of the strong-but-silent Takakura Ken, and Fukasaku Kinji, whose “Battles Without Honor and Humanity” series (1973-’74) was a groundbreaking re-creation of a real-life yakuza war. Neither won many awards or much international recognition at the time, but their contributions helped make Toei a box office powerhouse. Beginning in the 1950s and continuing in the 1960s as the diffusion