Famed for the free-flowing glide of his camera movements and the striking beauty of his visual composition; celebrated for the complexity of his minute-long plan sequences and the extraordinary care and precision with which he made landscapes, architectures, and décor into the protagonists of his films; honored both for his early, unflinching social studies as well as his moving, historical melodramas: Kenji Mizoguchi (1898–1956) is undoubtedly one of the greatest directors ever to work in Japanese cinema. He actually only became famous outside Japanese with his later works, following numerous awards at European film festivals for SAIKAKU ICHIDAI ONNA (The Life of Oharu, 1952), UGETSU MONOGATARI (Tales of the Rain and Moon, 1953), and SANSHO DAYU (Sansho the Bailiff, 1954). The possibility of gaining a more comprehensive insight into Mizoguchi’s comprehensive oeuvre – his first films are from the 20s, with his having made over 80 films as a director – thus only offered itself late on and remains only partially possible to this day, as a large part of his early works are lost. Regardless of this, the section of his oeuvre still accessible made Mizoguchi a fixed great within international film history, able to be grasped in numerous ways, zig-zagging through different genres and film studios, and making use of a wide range of formal approaches and themes.