Senkichi Taniguchi (谷口 千吉 Taniguchi Senkichi) (February 19, 1912 – October 29, 2007) was a Japanese film director and screenwriter.[1]
Born in Tokyo, Japan, he attended Waseda University but left before graduating due to his involvement in a left-wing theater troupe.[2][3] He joined P.C.L. (a precursor to Toho) in 1933 and began working as an assistant director to Kajirō Yamamoto alongside his longtime friend, acclaimed Japanese filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa.[2] He made his feature film directing debut in 1947 with Snow Trail, which was written by Kurosawa.[1][3] Snow Trial starred Toshirō Mifune in his film debut and actress Setsuko Wakayama. It helped establish Taniguchi's reputation for action film.[2]
Taniguchi and Wakayama married in 1949 (he had earlier been married to the screenwriter Yōko Mizuki), but the couple divorced in 1956.[1] Taniguchi married his third wife, actress Kaoru Yachigusa, in 1957. Yachigusa and Taniguchi remained together for over fifty years until his death in 2007.[1]
Taniguchi was the screenwriter for the 1949 film, The Quiet Duel, which Kurosawa directed and which also starred Mifune.[1] His most acclaimed film as a director was Escape at Dawn,[2] a controversial anti-war work from 1950 about a Japanese soldier and a "comfort woman" that got into trouble with Occupation era censors.[4] Taniguchi continued to direct movies throughout the 1950s and 1960s, but the quality of his work declined.[2] His films from the time period include Man Against Man, The Gambling Samurai, Man In The Storm and The Lost World of Sinbad.[1] His 1965 film International Secret Police: Key of Keys has been famously re-dubbed and re-released as What's Up, Tiger Lily? by Woody Allen. He was chosen as the supervising director of the official documentary of Expo '70.[5]
Senkichi Taniguchi died of pneumonia at a hospital in Tokyo, Japan, on October 29, 2007, at the age of 95.[1]
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