The filmography of cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa includes some of the most important works in the history of the Japanese cinema: Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950) and Yojimbo (1961); Mizoguchi's Ugetsu (1953) and Sansho the Bailiff (1954); Shinoda's Ballad of Orin (1977) and Ichikawa's Conflagration (1958), to name only a few. In her book, “Japanese Film Directors,” Audie Bock credits Miyagawa with devising ways to save Yojimbo from the difficulties presented Kurosawa by the switch to widescreen, and, of Ichikawa's Conflagration, says, “Kazuo Miyagawa's photography, wth its characteristic fluid movement, varied angles, and subtle light and shade, attains one of its triumphs....”
