Takashi Miike Filmography

Zebraman

Crew: Director

Actors: Sho Aikawa, Kyoka Suzuki, Teruyoshi Uchimura, Yui Ichikawa

Synopsis: A nebbish father and schoolteacher finds the courage to face both his personal issues and a horde of invading aliens after assuming the guise of an unpopular television superhero in maverick Japanese director Takashi Miike's warmhearted comedy. Nice guy Shinichi (Sho Aikawa) just can't seem to Read More

Crows: Episode 0

Crew: Director

Actors: Shun Oguri, Kyosuke Yabe, Takayuki Yamada, Shunsuke Daito, Meisa Kuroki

Synopsis: Idiosyncratic Japanese auteur Takashi Miike offers another meditation on a violent culture in this teen-themed thriller. Genji Takaya (Shun Oguri) is a teenage troublemaker whose father, Hideo (Goro Kishitani), is a high-ranking member of the yakuza. Genji is a new student at Suzuran Boys' High, a Read More

Like a Dragon

Crew: Director

Actors: Kazuki Kitamura, Goro Kishitani, Yoo Gong, Natsuo, Sho Aikawa

Synopsis: Cult Japanese director Takashi Miike draws inspiration from the popular Playstation 2 title Yakuza for this unhinged tale of underworld violence in Tokyo starring Goro Kishitani and Kazuki Kitamura. It's summertime in Tokyo, and as the temperature rises, two undercover cops stake out a Read More

The Great Yokai War

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

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

The Neighbor No. Thirteen

Actors: Shidou Nakamura, Shun Oguri, Hirofumi Arai, Yumi Yoshimura, Tomoya Ishii

Synopsis: After suffering years of abuse by his sadistic classmates, a vengeful Japanese boy develops a murderous alter ego in order to better deal with his traumatic past in director Yasuo Inoue's shockingly violent feature debut. As a high school student, shy Juzo was forced to endure the humiliation Read More

Hostel

Actors: Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Eythor Gudjonsson

Synopsis: Cabin Fever director Eli Roth skips the humor of his freshman feature and goes straight for the jugular in this unrelenting scare-fest about a pair of libidinous American backpackers seeking cheap thrills in the European countryside. Their carefree college days close behind and the responsibility Read More

Imprint

Crew: Director

Actors: Billy Drago, Youki Kudoh, Toshie Negishi, Michie

Synopsis: An American journalist in search of the love he once left behind travels to a mysterious Japanese island where the past is best left forgotten in the one installment of Showtime's Masters of Horror series that was too controversial for American television. It was long ago that Christopher (Billy Read More

Three... Extremes

Crew: Director

Actors: Bai Ling, Miriam Yeung, Tony Leung Kar-Fai, Pauline Lau, Zabit Memedov

Synopsis: Three Asian directors, from Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan, join forces to create an omnibus horror film, Three...Extremes. In Fruit Chan's "Dumplings," shot by Christopher Doyle, Mrs. Li (Miriam Yeung), a thirtysomething former actress with a philandering husband (Tony Leung) goes to visit Aunt Mei (Bai Ling Read More

One Missed Call

Crew: Director

Actors: Kou Shibasaki, Shinichi Tsutsumi, Kazue Fukiishi, Renji Ishibashi, Goro Kishitani

Synopsis: Visionary horror film director Takashi Miike delivers a typically stylish and idiosyncratic scare-fest with this thriller. Yumi Nakamura (Kou Shibasaki) is a mildly paranoid young woman whose good friend, Yoko, receives a strange and mysterious call on her cell phone. The phone's read-out says Read More

Demon Pond

Crew: Director, Screenwriter, Supervisor/Manager

Actors: Shinji Takeda, Tomoko Tabata, Ryuhei Matsuda, Yasuko Matsuyuki, Kenichi Endo

Synopsis: American fans of maverick Japanese director Takashi Miike may lament the fact that they have never had the privilege of seeing one of his stage productions firsthand, though with this release of Miike's popular, Kabuki-inspired play Demon Pond they can experience the next best thing to being Read More

Big Bang Love, Juvenile A

Crew: Director

Actors: Ryuhei Matsuda, Masanobu Ando

Synopsis: Two men imprisoned for seperate murders find their fates mortally intertwined in cult director Takashi Miike's homoerotic meditation on the societal flaws of modern-day Japan. Jun (Ryuhei Matsuda) is an effiminate gay bar employee who, after being sexually assaulted by a customer, brutally Read More

Arthouse Ultraman

Crew: Director

Actors: Sota Aoyama, Hitomi Hasebe, Kai Shishido, Hikari Mitsushima, Susumu Kurobe

Andromedia

Crew: Director

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

Izo

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The insanely prolific Takashi Miike teams again with screenwriter Shigenori Takechi (Graveyard of Honor) for his first samurai film, Izo. The film begins where Hideo Gosha's 1969 Hitokiri (the last film author Yukio Mishima starred in before his suicide) left off, with the crucifixion and bloody Read More

Gozu

Crew: Director

Actors: Hideki Sone, Sho Aikawa, Kimika Yoshino, Shohei Hino, Keiko Tomita

Synopsis: At a yakuza gathering, Ozaki (Shô Aikawa of the Dead or Alive films) unsettles the boss (Renji Ishibashi) when he claims a small dog outside the restaurant is a "yakuza attack dog" and viciously smashes it to death. Minami (Hideki Sone) is assigned to drive the apparently unstable Ozaki to a Read More

Ichi the Killer

Crew: Director

Actors: Tadanobu Asano, Nao Omori, Shinya Tsukamoto, Alien Sun, Sabu

Synopsis: Maverick auteur Takashi Miike spins this unsettling, blood-soaked yakuza yarn adapted from Hideo Yamamoto's cult manga Koroshiya 1. When mob don Anjo mysteriously disappears, his protégé Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano) vows to find the people responsible. Sporting a blond head of hair and a yawning Read More

Yakuza Demon

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike directed this characteristically offbeat and hard-hitting crime drama. Seiji and Yoshifumi are a pair of yakuza (Japanese gangsters) who have sworn their loyalty to mob boss Muto. When Muto fails to pay his proscribed share of the fund for an upcoming gang battle Read More

Sabu

Crew: Director

Actors: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Satoshi Tsumabuki

Synopsis: Take a trip back to the Tokugawa era for this tale of friendship and loyalty from acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike. When Eiji is wrongly imprisoned for a crime that he did not commit, his bad luck takes a turn for the worse when he is sent to an Ishikawa workhouse to perform hard labor. Read More

Shin Jingi no Hakaba

Crew: Director

Actors: Goro Kishitani, Narimi Arimori, Shingo Yamashiro, Ryosuke Miki

Synopsis: For his fifth or sixth film of 2002 -- one easily loses count -- Takashi Miike adapts Kinji Fukasaku's 1975 gangster classic Jingi no Hakaba about a doomed love affair between a renegade yakuza and his long-suffering girlfriend. Whereas the original film was set in the poverty of Japan's immediate Read More

Kinyu Hamestru Nippon: Togenkyo no Hitobito

Crew: Director

Actors: Yu Tokui, Shiro Sano, Sho Aikawa, Maro Akaji, Midoriko Kimura, Shigeru Muroi

Synopsis: Prolific cult director Takashi Miike adapts Yuji Aoki's popular comic book into this black comedy about the life of a humble businessman struggling to stay afloat during Japan's economic doldrums. The film opens with the bankruptcy of a big Osaka supermarket chain. The news hits a family run Read More

Dead or Alive: Final

Crew: Director

Actors: Riki Takeuchi, Sho Aikawa

Synopsis: DragonBall Z meets Blade Runner meets a William S. Burroughs head trip in this hallucinogenic sci-fi flick directed by Takashi Miike. It is set in the year 2346 in the city-state of Yokohama, which has become thoroughly sinocized in the intervening 300 years. People speak a mishmash of Japanese Read More

Deadly Outlaw: Rekka

Crew: Director

Synopsis: For his fifth or so release of 2002, phenomenally prolific filmmaker Takashi Miike directs this gangster epic. The film opens with the godfather (Yuya Uchida) of the Sanada-gumi being targeted for a hit. The hired gun, however, finds the old goat less than willing to die. Of course, the murder Read More

Visitor Q

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Takashi Miike spins this black comedy about the most dysfunctional family on the planet. The film opens with a father (Kenichi Endo) -- a gung-ho TV reporter -- not only paying to have sex with his estranged prostitute daughter in an anonymous hotel room but also videotaping the act as part of a Read More

The Happiness of the Katakuris

Crew: Director

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

Family 2

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Takashi Miike's Family, Part 2 continues the tale of the yakuza gangster named Hideshi, who must uncover the identity of the man who killed a powerful crime boss. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide Read More

Family

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Acclaimed director Takashi Miike explores a different kind of family dynamic with this adaptation of Hisao Maki's popular manga following the story of two rival yazuka clans engaged in a bloody battle for underworld supremacy. Notorious hit man Lightning Takeshi has been recruited to take out a Read More

Tengoku kara Kita Otokotachi

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The ever-prolific Takashi Miike directs this wild and woolly prison drama, reportedly based on real-life cases of Japanese imprisoned abroad. Set in the Philippines, the film revolves around elite salaryman Kohei Hayasaka (played by former pop star Koji Kikkawa who also did the music for the Read More

The City of Lost Souls

Crew: Director

Actors: Teah, Michelle Reis, Mitsuhiro Oikawa, Koji Kikkawa

Synopsis: The fantastically prolific Takashi Miike directs this dizzyingly stylish thriller -- one of four in the year 2000 alone -- about love, cocaine, and exile. In the film's near-wordless opening, half-Japanese Brazil Mario (Teah) wipes out a room full of his fellow criminals in a bar in Sao Paolo and Read More

Kintaro - The White Collar Worker

Crew: Director

Actors: Katsunori Takahashi

Synopsis: A former mob boss' past returns to haunt him as he tries to walk the straight and narrow in director Takashi Miike's adaptation of Hiroshi Motomiya's popular manga. He may have been a wild man in his past, but these days former biker Kintaro (Katsunori Takahashi) opts to spend his days working a Read More

Dead or Alive

Crew: Director

Actors: Riki Takeuchi, Sho Aikawa, Renji Ishibashi

Synopsis: Takashi Miike takes a dime-a-dozen yakuza script and turns it inside out in this high-octane surrealist crime action thriller. The film's first ten minutes is a breathless montage depicting a naked woman clutching a bag of cocaine being thrown off a high-rise, a porcine Chinese gangster devouring Read More

Multiple Personality Detective Psycho

Crew: Director

Actors: Ren Osugi, Tomoko Nakajima, Naoki Hosaka

Synopsis: Japanese horror auteur Takashi Miike directed this television miniseries which blends crime with terror. Kobayashi Yosuke (Naoki Hosaka) is a police detective whose wife was murdered by a notorious serial killer. The crime took an unusual toll on Yosuke -- he developed a second personality Read More

Dead or Alive 2: The Birds

Crew: Director

Actors: Sho Aikawa, Riki Takeuchi

Synopsis: In spite of its title, this film bares no direct relation to Takashi Miike's rip-roarin' Dead or Alive, which is not surprising since ended with world going up in flames in the last installment. This film opens with Mizuki (Sho Aikawa), who is hired by an eccentric magic enthusiast (Tsukamoto Read More

Silver

Crew: Director

Synopsis: A shattered woman once orphaned at the hands of a vicious band of killers seeks to destroy the lives of those who took her family from her in this bloody tale of death and revenge. Her life forever changed by the ruthless criminal collaborative known as "Paradise" Jun Shirogane's rage eventually Read More

Audition

Crew: Director

Actors: Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Miyuki Matsuda, Renji Ishibashi

Synopsis: Controversial Japanese director Takashi Miike creates this unnerving horror film about a widowed TV producer auditioning prospective wives. In his search, one candidate particularly stands out, a lovely ex-ballerina dressed in white. The widower cannot believe his good fortune, until he starts Read More

Ley Lines

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Three men hoping to find a better life in Tokyo find their dreams of happiness turning into a waking nightmare in the final installment of maverick Japanese Director Takashi Miike's Black Society trilogy. When a scheming Chinese prostitute takes the men for all they're worth and the harsh Read More

Blues Harp

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The prolific Takashi Miike directed this Japanese crime drama that is set at the same U.S. military base at Yokosuka seen in Shohei Imamura's Pigs and Battleships (1961), yet takes a tour of the Okinawan underground youth culture. Bi-racial bartender Chuji (Tanabe Seichi), son of an Okinawan Read More

The Bird People in China

Crew: Director

Actors: Masahiro Motoki, Renji Ishibashi, Mako, Wang Li Li

Synopsis: One of Japan's hottest young directors, Takashi Miike directs this curious adventure story set in China's picturesque Yunnan province. Workaholic Tokyo salaryman Wada (Masashiro Motoki) ventures into deepest, darkest China to investigate a massive deposit of high-quality jade. Tailing him is Ujiie Read More

Young Thugs: Nostalgia

Crew: Director

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

Full Metal Yakuza

Crew: Director

Actors: Takeshi Caesar, Yasushi Kitamura

Synopsis: Japanese horror auteur Takashi Miike directed this bizarre, ultra-violent variation on Robocop. Kensuke Hagane (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) works as a janitor for Tousa, the head of a powerful Yakuza family; Kensuke looks up to Tousa, and wants to join the organization some day. While Tousa is serving seven Read More

Rainy Dog

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Takashi Miike directs this brooding, hard-boiled gangster drama set in monsoon-soaked Taiwan. Yuji (played by Miike regular Sho Aikawa) ekes out an existence working as a Japanese hit man for a gang in Taipei. A laconic character with a lizard-like gaze, he seems to have little use for other Read More

Young Thugs: Innocent Blood

Crew: Director

Actors: Koji Chihara

Synopsis: This violent comedy is a cinematic bloodbath from cult filmmaker Takashi Miike. The story centers on a trio of chums trying to make their ways in the world after graduating school. Two of the fellows fall into the gritty world of organized crime. Meanwhile, the third of the group tries to walk the Read More

Fudoh: The New Generation

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Seijun Suzuki meets the Grand Guignol in this wild hallucinatory yakuza drama, directed by Japan's gonzo cinema auteur Takashi Miike, about one of the ugliest family squabbles this side of Oedipus. The film opens with lifelong gangster Iwao Fudoh (Toru Minegishi) killing his grown son after an Read More

Shinjuku Triad Society

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Takashi Miike's Shinjuku Triad Society is the first of a three-film series known as the Black Society Trilogy. Corrupt cop Tatsuhito disregards any and all regulations in his attempt to bring down Wang, an inhumanely cruel criminal who lords over an empire that makes its fortune from the debasing Read More

Bodyguard Kiba

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This slam-bang outing from Sonny Chiba is a good example of how Eastern genre fare was packaged and marketed for American release. The Bodyguard was originally known as Bodyguard Kiba (not Karate Kiba as some sources claim) and was based upon a comic book by Ikki Kajiwara. In the film version Read More

The Way to Fight

Synopsis: Two people engaged in a feud as teenagers meet later in life in the action film The Way to Fight. A teenage street-fighter, Kazuyoshi Tamai builds a reputation as the toughest guy in town. He crosses paths with a fellow street-fighter named Takeshi. They challenge each other, but because of a Read More