Born as Takehiko Kagoshima in Nagasaki, Shima left for Tokyo after graduating from high school.

[1] He was in the first class of the Nihon Eiga Haiyū Gakkō and joined the Nikkatsu studio as an actor in 1925.

[2] Playing mostly romantic leads, he appeared in films directed by such masters as Tomu Uchida and Kenji Mizoguchi.

[2] He turned to directing in 1939, and quickly came to prominence with films such as Kaze no Matasaburō, an adaption of a Kenji Miyazawa story, and Jirō Monogatari.

[1] After the war, he directed such films as Ginza Kankan Musume and Jūdai no Seiten at Shintoho and Daiei Studios.