[1][2] She had a career lasting over 50 years with more than 250 acting credits, but was best known for her 15 films with director Kenji Mizoguchi,[3] such as The Life of Oharu (1952) and Ugetsu (1953).

[8] In 1940, she worked with Kenji Mizoguchi for the first time, starring in Naniwa Onna ("A Woman of Osaka"), which is regarded as a lost film.

The following year, she appeared in Ornamental Hairpin, directed by Shimizu, which nowadays ranks, also thanks to Tanaka's performance, as one of the director's most mature achievements.

The film became famous for its finale which, a subversion of its militarist message, showed a mother (Tanaka) desperately trying to catch a last glimpse of her son who is marching off to war.

[10][11] Starting in October 1949, Tanaka made a three-month trip to the United States as one of Japan's first post-war cultural envoys.

She had a close working relationship with director Kenji Mizoguchi, having parts in 15 of his films, including leading roles in The Life of Oharu (1952), Ugetsu (1953) and Sansho the Bailiff (1954).

A recurrent topic of these films, both contemporary and historic dramas, was the fate of women mistreated by family, lovers and society.

In addition to her directing jobs, Tanaka continued with her acting career, appearing in Kinoshita's The Ballad Of Narayama (1958), for which she received the Kinema Junpo Award for Best Actress,[8] and in Akira Kurosawa's Red Beard (1965).

For her performance as an aged prostitute in Kei Kumai's 1975 Sandakan N° 8 she won the Best Actress Award at the 25th Berlin International Film Festival.