Katsumata graduated from Nippon University's film school in 1960 and began working with the Kyoto division of the Toei Company that same year as an assistant director to Masahiro Makino, Eiichi Kudo, Tomotaka Tasaka on his samurai dramas.
Born in Hiroshima Prefecture, he began working at Nikkatsu's Kyoto studio in 1924 and eventually came to prominence for a series of realist, humanist films made at Nikkatsu's Tamagawa studio in the late 1930s such as Robō no ishi and Mud and Soldiers, both of which starred Isamu Kosugi.