Uchida started out at the Taikatsu studio in the early 1920s but came to prominence at Nikkatsu adapting literary works with the screenwriter Yasutar? Yagi in a realist style His 1929 film A Living Puppet Ikeru ningyo was selected as the fourth best film of the year by the film journal Kinema Junpo Many of his 1930s films featured the actor Isamu Kosugi One such work Policeman Keisatsukan has been called a tremendously stylish gangster movie about the lovehate relationship between a cop and a criminal once childhood friends It is Uchidas only surviving complete silent film Uchida borrows from Hollywood gangster films and expressionist techniques in a story of a young policeman tracking down an old friend who is now a criminal His work from the 1920 and 1930s possess a leftist social commentary and were often some of the most critically acclaimed films of the time Kinema Junpo selected Jinsei Gekijo as the number two film of 1936 Karininaki Zenshin as the best film of 1937 and Tsuchi as the best film of 1939 The latter was praised for its realistic depiction of the lives of poor Meijiperiod tenant farmers Unfortunately few of Uchidas prewar works survive in their entirety In 1941 Uchida quit the Nikkatsu studio and after failing to start his own production company in 1943 began to work with the Manchukuo Film Association although he never completed a film there In 1945 he was taken prisoner and held in Manchuria until 1954 when he returned to Japan Upon he return he joined the Toei studio His postwar movies reveal a strong genre stylist with no immediately discernible themes much like many goldenage Hollywood directors Uchida effortlessly directed chamber dramas comedies and samurai epics often in color and with a forwardlooking dose of irony
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