[1][2][3] During the Sino-Japanese war he directed a number of military dramas such as The Story of Tank Commander Nishizumi (1940), for which he toured the actual battlefields in China.

[6] Yoshimura's 1947 The Ball at the Anjo House, starring Setsuko Hara, was named the best picture of the year by film magazine Kinema Junpo[1] and is regarded as one of his major works.

[4] The director's "most typical films" (Alexander Jacoby) were contemporary dramas focussing on sympathetically drawn female characters,[9] which earned him the comparison with Kenji Mizoguchi.

[2][4][9] He is credited with furthering the careers of actresses such as Fujiko Yamamoto, Ayako Wakao and his regular collaborator Machiko Kyō,[1] from whom he elicited outstanding performances.

[1] A retrospective on Yoshimura and Kaneto Shindō was held in London in 2012, organised by the British Film Institute and the Japan Foundation.