Kazuo Hara

Directing

Kazuo Hara

Born June 8, 1945 · Ube, Yamaguchi, Japan (age 81)

Kazuo Hara (原一男 Hara Kazuo, born 8 June 1945) is a Japanese documentary film director. After dropping out of university to work at a special education school, he made his 1972 debut work Goodbye CP about a group of individuals with cerebral palsy. He won the award for Best Director at the 12th Hochi Film Award and at the 9th Yokohama Film Festival for The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On. That film…

Known For

Shin GodzillaShin Godzilla · 2016
Shin Godzilla
7.22016
MovieActionScience Fiction
When a massive, gilled monster emerges from the deep and tears through the city, the government scrambles to save its citizens. A rag-tag team of volunteers cuts through a web of red tape to uncover the monster's weakness and its mysterious ties to a foreign superpower. But time is not on their side - the greatest catastrophe to ever befall the world is about to evolve right before their very eyes.
The Stars and the Moon are Holes in the SkyThe Stars and the Moon are Holes in the Sky · 2025
The Stars and the Moon are Holes in the Sky
5.32025
MovieDrama
A 40-something disillusioned novelist, Yazoe, haunted by a failed marriage and a crippling personal secret, navigates hollow affairs with a courtesan named Chieko while projecting his emotional void onto the protagonists of his love novels—until an accidental encounter with a naive college student, Noriko Seyawa, unravels his guarded solitude, forcing him to confront his fear of intimacy and the buried trauma shaping his twisted philosophy on love.
The Emperor's Naked Army Marches OnThe Emperor's Naked Army Marches On · 1987
The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On
7.61987
MovieDocumentary
Kenzo Okuzaki, a 62-year-old veteran of the New Guinea campaign in World War II, sets out to conduct interviews with survivors and relatives to find the truth behind atrocities committed by Japanese military, in particular the unexplained killing of two Japanese privates in his unit.
Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 · 1974
Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974
6.81974
MovieDocumentary
When his wife, the outspoken feminist Miyuki Takeda, announced that she was leaving him in order to find herself, Kazuo Hara began this raw, intensely personal documentary as a way to both maintain a connection to the woman he still cared for and to make sense of their complex relationship. Granted at times shockingly intimate access to Miyuki’s personal life, Hara follows her wayward journey toward liberation as she explores her sexuality with both men and women, becomes pregnant and raises a family as a single mother, and grows increasingly disenchanted with the constraints of traditional social structures.
Deep RiverDeep River · 1995
Deep River
7.31995
MovieDrama
A group of Japanese tourists try to forget their pasts and find themselves in India.
Child of the SunChild of the Sun · 1980
Child of the Sun
1980
Movie
A couple originally from Okinawa run an inexpensive restaurant in Kobe, with their grade-school daughter, Fuuchan. The movie depicts the warm interaction between her and adults that grew up with the rough history of Okinawa and discrimination from the mainland. Shots partly on location at beach of Itoman, Yogi Park and Hateruma Island. This is the movie version of the well-known novel by Kenjiro Haitani.
Reiwa UprisingReiwa Uprising · 2019
Reiwa Uprising
2019
MovieDocumentary
Kazuo Hara follows Ayumi Yasutomi, a transgender candidate, who is also a Tokyo University professor, as she embarks on a national campaign for a seat in Japan's Upper House.
The Sea and PoisonThe Sea and Poison · 1986
The Sea and Poison
7.01986
MovieDramaWar
Two interns and a nurse are interrogated by American MPs for their involvement in an atrocity during the war: the vivisections of a downed American air crew.

Filmography

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Minamata MandalaMinamata Mandala · 2021
Minamata Mandala
2021
MovieDocumentary
After years of dumping industrial wastes from the factory to the ocean, Chisso Chemical Corporation contaminated the area of a small Japanese fishing village with excessive amounts of methylmercury. This highly toxic chemical bioaccumulated in fishes of the local water, which when consumed by the local populace resulted in mercury poisoning. In 1977, Minamata disease certification criteria was set by a strange method that tried not to recognize the rights of environmental disease patients. However, an Osaka court won the case for some patients because of a newly developed theory by medical doctors’ recent experiments and proofs. For decades, these patients struggled within the Japanese judicial system for their rights to receive compensation as victims of environmental disease. Those different aspects of these patients’ lives have been filmed by director Hara for the last 15 years, inspired by the late director Tsuchimoto’s documentary MINAMATA: THE VICTIMS AND THEIR WORLD (1971).

Producer