Thomas Kurihara, birth name Kisaburō Kurihara (栗原喜三郎), was born in Hadano, Kanagawa. Kurihara's father was a wood trader, but he failed in business. Kurihara went to United States and enrolled in a school for film actors in 1912. After graduation, working as an extra, he entered Oriental Production, which was founded by Thomas Harper Ince for Asian actors. There he worked with Sesshu Hayakawa, Tsuruko Aoki, Goro Kino and many Japanese actors. Performance of Takeo in The Wrath of the Gods (1914) made him famous.

Hoping to work film industry in his country, Kurihara went back to Japan in 1918, and entered Taishō Katsuei in April 1920, a film production which Ryozō Asano of Asano zaibatsu (Kurihara's acquaintance) founded at Yamashita-cho, Yokohama. There he started his career as film director. His first work at Taisho was Amateur Club (1920), which Junichiro Tanizaki joined as a film writer.

Until Taisho Katsudo Eiga stopped to making films in 1922 Kurihara made more than 30 films. He also lectured many film directors and actors: Tomu Uchida, Kintaro Inoue and Buntaro Futagawa; Tokihiko Okada, Michiko Hayama, Ureo Egawa and Atsushi Watanabe.

Kurihara died on 8 September 1926 at the age of 41. (IMDB) Edit Biography