Umetsugu Inoue: Japan’s Music Man

Although Japanese filmmaker Umetsugu Inoue (1923–2010) worked in a number of genres, he is best known for musicals. When he was directing musicals at the Nikkatsu studio in the 1950s, he caught the eye of Hong Kong’s famed Shaw Brothers, and they hired him in the late 1960s. Inoue’s prolific filmography numbers more than 100 movies. Film descriptions adapted from Mark Schilling’s “Asia Sings! A Survey of Asian Musical Films.”

• On the MFAH Blog: Read an interview with Tom Vick, Freer|Sackler curator and organizer of the series.

Touring retrospective organized by the Smithsonian’s Freer|Sackler with funding from the Inoue & Tsukioka Movie Foundation. Special thanks to Tom Vick.

Community partner: Japan-America Society of Houston (JASH)