Ranko Hanai
Japanese actress (1918–1961)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Biography
Hanai was born Yoshiko Shimizu in Osaka, Japan.[1] As a child, she acted with the theatre troupes of Takeo Kawai and Rokurō Kitamura,[4] and gave her screen debut under the name of Reiko Shimizu in 1929.[2][4] She entered the Nikkatsu film studio in 1931 and moved to J. O. Sutajio (later Toho) in 1937.[1] In 1946, in opposition to the union strike at Toho, Yamada sided with the anti-unionist group "Jū hito no hata no kai" ("Society of the Flag of Ten"), which consisted of Setsuko Hara, Hideko Takamine, Isuzu Yamada and others,[5] and joined the Shintoho studio.[1] During the 1950s, she also occasionally worked for Toho and other production companies, appearing in films of Mikio Naruse, Heinosuke Gosho, Kinuyo Tanaka and Kaneto Shindō.[3] She died in 1961 at the age of 42.[1]
Selected filmography
- The Million Ryo Pot (1935, dir. Sadao Yamanaka)
- Fallen Blossoms (1938, dir. Tamizō Ishida)
- Sanshiro Sugata (1943, dir. Akira Kurosawa)
- Ginza Cosmetics (1951, dir. Mikio Naruse)
- Repast (1951, dir. Mikio Naruse)
- Life of a Woman (1953, dir Kaneto Shindō)
- Love Letter (1953, dir. Kinuyo Tanaka)
- Where Chimneys Are Seen (1953, dir. Heinosuke Gosho)
- Onna no Koyomi (1954, dir. Seiji Hisamatsu)
- The Shiinomi School (1955, dir. Hiroshi Shimizu)
- A Wife's Heart (1956, dir. Mikio Naruse)
