Naoto TakenakaFilmography

Tokyo!

Actors: Ayako Fujitani, Ryo Kase, Ayumi Ito, Denis Lavant, Jean-François Balmer

Synopsis: Directors Michel Gondry, Bong Joon-ho, and Leos Carax each direct a segment of this triptych feature about life in 21st century Tokyo. The saga begins with Gondry's segment, entitled "Interior Design," about a young couple who moves in with an old friend while attempting to establish themselves in Read More

Where the Legend Lives

Actors: Naoto Takenaka, Sayuri Yoshinaga, Yosuke Kubozuka, Toru Kazama

Synopsis: This fantasy feature from Japan tells the story of Yohei, a blind man with a quiet obsession for finding the mythical land of Yamataikoku, which legend says was home to a shaman queen named Himiko. Without his sense of sight, Yohei depends on his wife to interpret the clues he finds that bring him Read More

The Great Yokai War

Synopsis: A group of grotesque supernatural creatures from Japanese folklore enlist the aid of a young boy recently bestowed with the title of Kirin Rider in defeating a powerful dark overlord who preys on humans and monsters alike in this kid-friendly fantasy from Takashi Miike. As a series of bizarre Read More

Andromedia

Synopsis: Japan's renegade horror filmmaker Takashi Miike reveals a more subtle (but no less adventurous) side to his cinematic personality in this offbeat example of thinking person's science fiction. Mai (Hiroko Shimabukuro) is a youngster whose father (Tsunehiko Watase) is a scientist who is working on a Read More

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

Actors: Kouichi Yamadera, Atsuko Tanaka, Akio Ôtsuka

Synopsis: Anime legend Mamoru Oshii wrote and directed this eagerly awaited sequel to his groundbreaking sci-fi drama Ghost in the Shell, which follows the continued adventures of futuristic crime fighters Batou (voice of Akio Otsuka) and Togusa (voice of Kouichi Yamadera). It's the year 2032, and Batou and Read More

Swing Girls

Actors: Juri Ueno, Yuta Hiraoka, Naoto Takenaka, Shihori Kanjiya

Synopsis: A group of scheming Japanese schoolgirls attempt to get out of summer math class by delivering bento boxes to the school's brass band, in the process contaminating the meals and forming a stand-in band with the one real musician who hasn't fallen ill. A group of struggling female math students are Read More

Onna Rihatsushi No Koi

Actors: Kazuki Kitamura, Keiko Oginome, Jiro Sato, Yutaka Nakazawa, Yasufumi Hayashi

Synopsis: This erotic drama from director Masahiro Kobayashi was filmed almost entirely alongside the austere, snow-filled landscape of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. Featuring Kill Bill alumni (Kazuki Kitamura) as unhinged loner Kenji, Onna Rihatsushi No Koi takes off when salon owner Harumi (Keiko Oginome Read More

O-Yo

Actors: Tetsuya Kumakawa, Aki Shibuya, Naoto Takenaka, Kohtaro Satomi

Synopsis: Ikuo Sekimoto's O-Yo is an erotically charged drama about artists and a model. Yumeji Takehisa (Naoto Takenaka) and Seiun Ito (Tetsuya Kumakawa) both hire model Kaneyo Sasaki (Aki Shibuya). The artists have very different approaches to the work, causing the model to alter her perceptions of art Read More

Mr. Rookie

Actors: Kazushige Nagashima, Mayu Tsuruta, Jun Kunimura, Mirai Yanamoto, Tamao Sato

Synopsis: Japanese filmmaker Satoshi Isaka directs the baseball comedy Mr. Rookie, adapted from the novel by Dankan. By day, family man Koji Ohara (real-life baseball player Kazushige Nagashima) manages a construction company. By night, he's the masked pitcher of the Hanshin Tigers known as "Mr. Rookie." Read More

Waterboys

Actors: Satoshi Tsumabuki

Synopsis: Can five teenage boys overcome clumsiness, inexperience, and the taunts of their classmates to become a champion team of synchronized swimmers? That's the key question in this comedy from Japan. Suzuki (Satoshi Tsumabuki) is an enthusiastic competitive swimmer who is the linchpin of his high Read More

Rendan

Crew: Director

Actors: Naoto Takenaka, Yuki Amami

Synopsis: Character actor and occasional director Naoto Takenaka spins this farce on gender roles and contemporary mores. Thoughtful, diminutive Shotaro Sasaki (Takenaka) inherited a stack of money and a large Western-style house from his landlord father. As a result, he retired from his white-collar job to Read More

The Happiness of the Katakuris

Actors: Kenji Sawada, Keiko Matsuzaka, Shinji Takeda, Naomi Nishida, Tamaki Miyazaki

Synopsis: One of an amazing seven features directed in 2001 by Japan's prolific shock auteur Takashi Miike, The Happiness of the Katakuris is a gleefully morbid musical comedy about a family of oddballs who open an inn in the mountains. Unfortunately, through no fault of their own, none of their guests Read More

Freeze Me

Actors: Harumi Inoue

Synopsis: Takashi Ishii directs this jet-black erotic thriller about a woman's past coming back to haunt her. Chihiro (played by model Harumi Inoue) is enjoying her life -- she likes her white-collar job and she loves her handsome co-worker boyfriend. Then one day, she sees an unusually attractive stranger Read More

Sanmon Yakusha

Actors: Naoto Takenaka, Hideko Yoshida, Nobuko Otowa

Synopsis: Celebrated Japanese filmmaker Kaneto Shindo, at 88, was the world's second-oldest working director when he made this biopic of character actor Taiji Tonoyama (Portugal's Manoel de Oliveira, age 91, held the distinction of being the oldest). Tonoyama, who acted in 250 films throughout his career Read More

Gemini

Actors: Masahiro Motoki, Ryo, Yasutaka Tsutsui, Shiho Fujimura, Akaji Maro

Synopsis: Shinya Tsukamoto's latest work is a bit of a departure for the director of such over-the-top cult films as Tetsuo: Iron Man (1989). Though punctuated by his trademark kinetic camera work, this moody gothic horror film has the sort of brittle formalism more common in Japanese domestic dramas of Read More

Kanzen Naru Shi-iku

Actors: Naoto Takenaka, Hijiri Kojima, Eriko Watanabe, Kazuki Kitamura, Asami Sawaki

Synopsis: Veteran television director Ben Wada spins this bizarre romance of sorts based on a script written by acclaimed filmmaker Kaneto Shindo. The film opens with lonely recent divorcé, Iwamoto (Naoto Takenaka), drugging and abducting a comely high school student named Kuniko (Hijiri Kojima). After Read More

Young Thugs: Nostalgia

Actors: Naoto Takenaka

Synopsis: Nostalgia deals with the home and school life of a young boy whose world is a mesh of the lovably comic and the brutally violent. Focusing on the emergence of an adult perception in a boy who until now has lived largely in fantasy, the film is a coming-of-age tale that director Takashi Miike Read More

Tokyo Biyori

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Following up on his critically acclaimed 119, Naoto Takenaka directs this portrait of a very passionate, though strange marriage loosely based on a book by renowned photographer Nobuyoshi Araki about his own deceased wife. Shimazu (played by Takenaka, the director) quits his job as ad agency Read More

Shall We Dance?

Actors: Koji Yakusho, Tamiyo Kusakari, Naoto Takenaka, Eriko Watanabe, Hideko Hara, Akira Emoto

Synopsis: Reminiscent of the Australian hit Strictly Ballroom (1992), this romantic comedy from Japan was a hit in its country of origin, despite (or perhaps because of) its tacit criticisms of the restrictive aspects of Japanese culture. Shohei Sugiyama (Koji Yakusho) is a typically strait-laced Japanese Read More

Tokyo Fist

Actors: Shinya Tsukamoto, Kaori Fujii, Kohji Tsukamoto

Synopsis: Tsuda (played by Shinya Tsukamoto) is a frustrated insurance salesman who lives a life of quiet desperation with his girlfriend Hizuru (Kaori Fujii). His job yields little fulfillment, his relationship lacks passion, and he feels perpetually fatigued, as if overwhelmed by the inhuman scale of Read More

Gonin

Synopsis: Get Carter meets Heidegger in this slick, two-fisted gangster epic brimming with furtive sex and shocking violence. The film centers on five poster-boys of Japan's post-bubble economic malaise: Bandai (Koichi Sato), the owner of a once popular nightclub who's up to his fashionable lapels in debt Read More

The Mystery of Rampo

Actors: Masahiro Motoki, Naoto Takenaka, Michiko Hada, Teruyuki Kagawa, Mikijiro Hira

Synopsis: Edogawa Rampo -- a pen name that is also a homonym in Japanese for Edgar Allen Poe -- amassed a major cult following after writing a series of short stories that masterly meld the erotic and the grotesque. Unlike previous films about of his work -- such as Noboru Tanaka's masterful Stroller in the Attic Read More

Shinde Mo II

Actors: Masatoshi Nagase, Hideo Murota, Naoto Takenaka

Synopsis: Continuing his penchant for directing films in the characteristically Japanese genre he virtually created, director Takashi Ishii here presents yet another stylish rape/thriller. Nami is an attractive woman, and she loves her husband, who runs the real estate agency she works at. One day, during a Read More

Until the End of the World

Actors: William Hurt, Solveig Dommartin, Sam Neill, Max von Sydow, Rüdiger Vogler

Synopsis: Wim Wenders' sprawling cyberpunk noir epic -- shot in no less than nine different countries -- is set in 1999 and stars Solveig Dommartin as Claire, a young Frenchwoman who comes into contact with a large sum of money stolen during a bank heist; in her travels she picks up a mysterious American Read More

Nowhere Man

Crew: Director

Actors: Naoto Takenaka

Synopsis: Best-known in the west for his scene-stealing performance as a obsessive cha-cha enthusiast in the 1996 hit film Shall We Dance, Naoto Takenaka is also a respected filmmaker in his own right, crafting such domestically praised works as 119 and Tokyo Biyori. Takenaka's directorial debut, Muno no Read More

226

Actors: Kenichi Hagiwara, Tomokazu Miura, Masahiro Motoki, Naoto Takenaka, Daisuke Ryu

Synopsis: Many may not be aware that during the 1930s a very covert civil war was going on in Japan and no government minister (and almost no military general officer) was safe from it. The conflict was chiefly between those who wanted to take over and exploit whatever parts of Asia could be conquered, and Read More

So Howato

Synopsis: American parents would be glad if their children's desire to join rock and roll bands could have the kind of outcome the boys in So What opt for. Even though they really enjoy their band, these boys are so concerned about their schoolwork that they have a difficult time allotting any time to Read More

Fancy Dance

Actors: Masahiro Motoki, Honami Suzuki, Ken Osawa, Hiromasa Taguchi, Miyako Koda