Daiei was established in 1942 under its original title of the Greater Japan Motion Picture Production Company (Dai Nihon Eiga Seisaku Kabukishikigaisha).
[1] The company began submitting its films to overseas festivals in the early 1950s with titles such as Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, Kenji Mizoguchi's Ugetsu and Teinosuke Kinugasa's Gate of Hell, which all won awards internationally.
[2] Other productions during the 1950s and 1960s included their horror (ghost) films and the long-running Zatoichi series starring Katsu Shintaro.
[1] The company also created kaiju eiga during this period to rival the popular Toho Godzilla series with Gamera and Daimajin.
[2] By 1974, Daiei was being run as a rental studio, as it was assimilated as a subsidiary of Tokuma Shoten Publishing Company.