Yoshimitsu Morita

Director

January 25, 1950 (61 years)

† December 20, 2011

Chigasaki, Kanagawa, Japan

Biography

Yoshimitsu Morita was a Japanese film director. Self-taught, first making shorts on 8 mm film during the 1970s, he made his feature film debut with No Yōna Mono (Something Like It, 1981). In 1983 he won acclaim for his movie Kazoku Gēmu ("The Family Game"), which was voted the best film of the year by Japanese critics in the Kinema Junpo magazine poll. This black comedy dealt with then-recent changes in the structure of Japanese home life. It also earned Morita the Directors Guild of Japan New …

Filmography

6.0

Lost Paradise

Kuki is a veteran newspaper reporter who has been shuffled off to a book-development branch and finds escape in an illicit relationship with Rinko. Together they find the passion no longer present in their marriages.

7.9

Haru

A young Tokyo businessman joins an online movie forum and develops a special bond with one of its members through back and forth e-mails.

6.8

The Family Game

A sendup of the stereotypical Japanese family: dad is a salaryman jerk, unable to relate to anyone; mom is a hopeless housewife; the older son is a moderate academic success; but the younger son is a rebellious goof-off for whom a tutor must be hired. The tutor proceeds to blow the entire family apart.

6.2

Keiho

The psychiatric evaluation of a young actor arrested for a brutal double murder concludes he may be unfit for trial. Further investigation, however, reveals the crime was a well-planned statement against the section of Japan's criminal code granting diminished responsibility to the mentally impaired.

6.2

Abacus and Sword

Set during the Meiji Restoration period of Edo era Japan, Naoyuki belongs to the 8th generation of the Inoyama family, a wealthy family known for finance & accounting. He is also a gifted mathematician and uses the abacus with extreme skills. Naoyuki works under the declining Kaga domain. Because of this, Naoyuki and his wife Koma suffer hardships as their stature and wealth dissipates.

7.2

Copycat Killer

The story of a criminal who abducts and kills women, and those who try to catch him. Nakai is cast as a cold-blooded, intelligent and evil guy who uses the media to announce and show his murders live to the public.

6.3

Come On Girls!

Three high school boys leave their dormitory and go to a resort and fall in love.

4.9

Top Stripper

A naive delivery boy becomes infatuated with a girl who works at a local strip joint. Despite his daily attendance and attempts to get her attention she remains indifferent until one day she invites him onstage.

3.3

Umineko - Inseparable

The shock of her fiance's sudden dissolution of their relationship causes university student, Miki, to lose her voice. While recuperating in a hospital in her hometown of Hakodate, she learns of the tragic life of her deceased mother, Kaoru, from her grandmother.

5.0

Pink Cut: Love Me Hard, Love Me Deep

Mami runs a barber shop called The Pink Cut. The place is an immediate success, due mostly to super-short skirts. Recently, Akira, who is anxious about not finding a job, has started coming to her shop. Although he has a girlfriend, he is soon interested in Mami.

6.3

Tsubaki Sanjuro

"Tsubaki Sanjuro" is a remake of Sanjuro (1962) by Akira Kurosawa. Sanjuro returns with sharper, faster, subtler sword, talking and perception. He uses them to settle the trouble and uses them good!

6.4

Main Theme

A kindergarten teacher meets a novice magician and together they travel to another city to find love.

7.3

Future Memories: Last Christmas

Yuko dreams of being a best selling children's author, but as an adult she has made little progress. In her depression, she bonds with Ginko, a roadside fortune teller who has had a tragic love life. Both die the next day but appear 10 years before with their memories intact. Will they choose more wisely or be sunk by new unfulfilling choices between career and romance?

6.0

The Black House

A timid insurance agent investigates a possible insurance fraud case that involves a death. As the facts are slowly revealed, he becomes progressively more frightened.

7.1

And Then

Daisuke is supposed to be out looking for a respectable job and equally respectable wife. He is 30 years old and devotes his attention to music and literature; his family is wealthy and can support his interests. When his friend Hiraoka returns with his wife Michiyo, problems arise.

7.0

Deaths in Tokimeki

Deaths in Tokimeki tells the story of a nondescript hitman, in a remote country villa, waiting to carry out a job: the assassination of the leader of a religious cult.

6.5

Like Asura

The four Takezawa sisters discover that their father has an illegitimate child so they hire a private detective to investigate.

7.0

Kitchen

Mikage, a young woman who loses her parents when young. She grows up in a lonely household with her grandmother who dies when Mikage reaches adulthood. Grief-stricken, she finds solace in the kitchen.

6.0

Train Brain Express

Real estate company employee Komachi and steelworks heir Kodama are both train aficionados. Their hobby proves useful for their burgeoning careers, but their romantic fortunes do not go as smoothly. Will the awkward Kodama and the indecisive Komachi find the loves of their lives?

5.2

Love and Action in Osaka

Despite his efforts of living a normal life as a banker, the life of Toru, the only son of the Yubari Family, becomes disrupted by trouble brought on by his father. When his father’s battle against his rival group the Miike Family ignites, Toru becomes more involved in the turf war than he wished for.