Machiko Kyo

With over 80 film credits throughout her career, including some by director Akira Kurosawa, Machiko Kyo was a prolific actress starring in some of the most quintessential Japanese films. She was born Motoko Yano in 1924, and although many sources claim her birthplace as Osaka where she was raised by a single mother, this was not the case. According to a profile published in 1955, she was actually born in Mexico, the daughter of a Japanese engineer, and she returned to Japan with her mother after her parents got divorced when Machiko was only a few years old (Fox). At the time of its publication, the article notes that her father operated a TV and appliance store in Sao Paulo where he had remarried and raised another family while Kyo lived with her mother in Tokyo.

At the age of 13 in 1936, she launched her career by joining the Osaka Shochiku Girls’ Revue Company (now known as the OSK Nippon Revue Company). This was during the studio's early years when they specialized in pan-Japanese theatre including kabuki, bunraku and revue (Adams). By the time she was in her mid-twenties, she moved to Tokyo where she was a showgirl at Nichigeki Theater. Her big break came in 1949 when she was discovered by a scout from Daiei Film Studio. At the suggestion of Daiei producer (and later president), Masaichi Nagata, she changed her name to Machiko Kyo.

Machiko Kyo had credits in a few films when she started her career, however it was her leading female role in the 1950 film Rashomon, directed by Akira Kurosawa, that brought Kyo international fame. Kurosawa recalled in his 1982 memoir, Something Like an Autobiography, that he’d been “left speechless” by Kyo’s commitment to her role, writing “She came in to where I was sleeping in the morning and sat down with the script in hand. ‘Please teach me what to do,’ she requested, and I lay there amazed” (Hudson).

An additional sign of her commitment to her performances came down to her own appearance. She shaved her eyebrows for hikimayu, the eighth century practice of removing the natural eyebrows and painting artificial shapes that became particularly attributed to the Heian period and would suit the feudal era films that Kyo starred in. Interestingly, Rashomon’s fame was partially due to a chance entry in the 1951 Venice Film Festival. Japan was invited to send a film to Venice, yet Rashomon was not even initially considered (Anderson). When the representative of Italiafilm in Tokyo, Giuliana Stramigioli, recommended strongly that Rashomon be submitted, Daiei Studio objected but eventually sent the film with reluctance to Venice. It went on to win a prize at the festival and then an Academy Award in 1952.

The success of Rashomon at the Venice Film Festival led it and two other films, all three starring Kyo, to be brought to the U.S. In 1953, Daiei Studio's Nagata launched an unheard-of plan to export Japanese cinema to the world, at a time when international film distribution was just starting to re-emerge (Sanders). Teaming with American distributor Edward Harrison, the three films released — Rashomon, Ugetsu, and Gate of Hell (Jigokumon) — all became sensations in America, as well as cornerstones of film history.

Ugetsu (1953) showcased Kyo’s wide range of skill in her performance as Lady Wakasa. “Employing the type of movement used in Noh drama, she successfully conveyed the chilling atmosphere typical of the ghost genre within the Noh repertoire, combining a horrifying effect with a mysterious eroticism,” writes Kyoko Hirano for Film Reference (Hudson). Gate of Hell (1953) was historic in its own right as Daiei Studio's first color feature. It was also the first color feature to be released outside of Japan and it only enhanced Kyo’s reputation as the ‘Grand Prix actress’ when it secured two Oscars (for costume design and honorary foreign-language film) and the Grand Prize at Cannes (Parkinson). The additional success of these films led to a publicity tour in the U.S.

Machiko Kyo in Gate of Hell (1953) — Machiko Kyo in *Gate of Hell* (1953)

Kyo’s time in the U.S. included filming The Teahouse of the August Moon, a Hollywood production released in 1956 starring Marlon Brando as Sakini, an Okinawan native working as an interpreter. The film was an important part of Kyo's filmography despite the unfortunate use of yellowface that perpetrated Asian stereotypes. It brought visibility to interracial relationships at a time of racial tension, and was significant as her only non-Japanese film. Her lightly comedic part was not only a departure from her previous dramatic performances, it required her to perform without a knowledge of English which she did with perfect comic timing and charm (Thomas 100).

Kyo appeared in another film in 1956, this one titled Street of Shame. One of the most defining roles of her career, she portrays the Americanized, gum-chewing prostitute in the Kenji Mizoguchi film which was also distributed in the U.S, marketed as “a jolting story of Tokyo’s love-for-sale girls!” (Sanders). This film served to further showcase her range and skill in her performance. Hirano notes that “at one moment while simultaneously eating, smoking, chewing gum, and talking, she outrageously summarizes both her character’s tactile eroticism as well as her own considerable comic skills” (Hudson). The film is also said to have influenced the passing of what is known as the Anti-Prostitution Law. Released after months of extended debate about an anti-prostitution law which is even discussed within the film, Street of Shame is said to have given the final impetus to the ban’s final establishment (Harvard Film Archive). Its unsparing and forcefully direct refusal to romanticize the life or figure of the prostitute unflinchingly revealed the sordid dimensions of her tawdry, tattered world.

Machiko Kyo on the Croisette during the Cannes Film Festival, May 1960

Machiko Kyo was awarded the Medal of Honor, Purple Ribbon in 1987 and the Order of the Precious Crown, Fourth Class, Wisteria in 1994. Both awarded by the Emperor of Japan, the former is awarded to individuals who have contributed to academic and artistic developments, improvements and accomplishments; the latter a women-only version of the Order of the Rising Sun. In 2017, she was presented with an award of merit at the 40th Japanese Academy Awards. She made some appearances in her later years, and eventually retired and resided in Osaka until her death in 2019. Though she had a well-publicized relationship with Daiei Studio's Producer and President, Masaichi Nagata, she never married. Though her most renowned works were released before the 1970s, her captivating performances have ensured their lasting place in cinematic history.

Additional Notable Works

Floating Weeds (1959)

A Woman’s Testament (1960)

The Face of Another (1966)

Further Reading

Actress of Beauty and Destruction, Kyohei Kitamura (2019)

Related Media

New trailer for Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon - back in cinemas from 6 January 2023 | BFI

Works Cited

Adams, Wally. “Obituary: Machiko Kyo – the Princess of Japanese Cinema | Easternkicks.com.” Easternkicks.com, 2 Jan. 2020, www.easternkicks.com/features/obituary-machiko-kyo-the-princess-of-japanese-cinema/. Accessed 9 Apr. 2025.

Anderson, Robert. “The Rashomon Effect and Communication.” Canadian Journal of Communication, vol. 41, no. 2, 25 Apr. 2016, https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2016v41n2a3068.

Fox, Fred W. “Machiko is of rare galaxy.” Los Angeles Mirror, 28 Sep 1955, pp. 29.

Harvard Film Archive. Street of Shame - Harvard Film Archive. 18 May 2014, harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/street-of-shame-2014-05. Accessed 10 Apr. 2025.

Hudson, David. “Remembering Machiko Kyo.” The Criterion Collection, 30 May 2019, www.criterion.com/current/posts/6408-remembering-machiko-kyo?srsltid=AfmBOop9Xg2PP4bw6vGs2K3RodQoK6Oy_kpyrR1jhm9XRKbkWW03rwAc. Accessed 9 Apr. 2025.

Parkinson, David. “Machiko Kyo: 5 Essential Films.” BFI, 15 May 2019, www.bfi.org.uk/lists/machiko-kyo-5-essential-films. Accessed 9 Apr. 2025.

Sanders, Jason. “Eiga Stars :: Machiko Kyo in Japanese Film-Fan Magazines of the 1950s - Blook.” Archive.org, 24 June 2011, web.archive.org/web/20110719144207/blook.bampfa.berkeley.edu/2011/06/eiga-stars-machiko-kyo-in-japanese-film-fan-magazines-of-the-1950s.html. Accessed 9 Apr. 2025.

Thomas, Tony. The Films of Marlon Brando. Secaucus, N.J., Citadel Press, 1 Jan. 1973.