Tanaka initially trained as a stage actor in the shingeki movement under Kaoru Osanai, but eventually joined the Nikkatsu film studio in 1917.

[1] He debuted as a director in 1918[2] but mostly had to work with shinpa stories, not the shingeki techniques he was used to although two early films, The Living Corpse (Ikeru shikabane) and The Cherry Orchard (Sakura no sono) were based on Tolstoy and Chekhov respectively.

[1] He remained a rather conservative filmmaker and still used oyama (male actors) in female roles, including in his masterpiece Kyōya eirimise, a melodrama about a merchant's destructive love for a geisha.

He used actresses for the first time in Dokuro no mai, a story of a monk reminiscing about his youth and early loves.

[3] His career as a director came to an end in 1923 aside from two minor sound films in the 1930s[3] but he also penned screenplays for such directors as Kenji Mizoguchi and Yutaka Abe[1] and concentrated on acting, appearing in films by Tadashi Imai and Shirō Toyoda.