Known for Camera
Kōzō Shibasaki (柴崎 幸三, Shibasaki Kōzō, born January 30, 1958) is a Japanese cinematographer. A member of the Japanese Society of Cinematographers, he is the recipient of four Japanese Academy Awards, three of which were for films directed by acclaimed filmmaker Takashi Yamazaki.
Born
January 30, 1958 (age 68)
Birthplace
Tochigi, Japan
Filmography
36 films


Godzilla Minus One
2023 · 2h 5m
country: Japan
In postwar Japan, Godzilla brings new devastation to an already scorched landscape. With no military intervention or government help in sight, the survivors must join together in the face of despair and fight back against an unrelenting horror.


Ghost Book
2022 · 1h 52m
country: Japan
The forbidden book that will make any wish come true "The Ghostly Book of Books". However, in order to make your wish come true you have to go through a life-threatening trial. What is that trial...?


Love, Life and Goldfish
2021 · 1h 32m
country: Japan
Makoto Kashiba is an elite bank clerk and works for a big bank at its Tokyo HQ. Due to a minor mistake, he is demoted to a small branch office in a country town. He is devastated by his situation. There, he meets beautiful Yoshino Ikoma. She runs a goldfish scooping store. Makoto Kashiba falls in love with her at first sight.


Family of Strangers
2019 · 1h 57m
country: Japan
Three patients of different backgrounds, illnesses and stages are being treated at a psychiatric clinic in Nagano Prefecture. Their cases range from the criminal to merely asocial. That should be that, but soon matters take a darker turn when a corpse turns up and a murder has occurred. The culprit fingered is one of the patients.


The Great War of Archimedes
2019 · 2h 10m
country: Japan
It is the early 1930s and the command of the Japanese Imperial Navy determines to construct the world's biggest and most formidable battleship, Yamato. One of the admirals, Yamamoto Isoroku, disagrees. He recruits the upstart and mathematics' expert Tadashi Kai who discovers there are discrepancies between the official cost estimates and the actual figures. They soon find out that they have stumbled upon a conspiracy.


Our Departures
2018 · 2h
country: Japan
Akira is widowed and left with a pre-teen stepson. Travelling with him to her late husband's hometown, she meets her odd father-in-law and yet decides to make a go of living and working there. She attends training and joins the railway company where her father-in-law works and her late man dreamt of ending up as a child.


Destiny: The Tale of Kamakura
2017 · 2h 9m
country: Japan
Set in an alternate universe, the ancient capital of Kamakura is a vibrant town where fantastical creatures live alongside humans. Akiko is a cheerful publishing assistant who moves into town after marrying Masakazu, a popular mystery writer. Akiko is surprised by the unusual town but enjoys the new curiosities surrounding her. However, just as she was beginning to settle in, a trifling incident sweeps her spirit to the underworld too soon. Convinced that destiny has something else in store for his wife, Masakazu journeys into the underworld to bring back Akiko’s spirit.


Close-Knit
2017 · 2h 7m
country: Japan
After being neglected by her mother, a little girl is taken in by her uncle and his transgender girlfriend, who create a loving home for her.


Fueled: The Man They Called "Pirate"
2016 · 2h 25m
country: Japan
In a time when the main source of energy was still coal, there was a man who saw the future in oil. Young Tetsuzo Kunioka who hails from Moji, Kitakyushu, rides out into the oil business, but is faced with numerous challenges and competitors who stand in his way, including domestic suppliers and major western oil companies, or the "oil majors". But Tetsuzo never gave up, however despairing the situation was. He always found a way and paved a new road with his unconventional ideas, eccentric actions, and most of all, his caring heart toward his own men. That style of Tetsuzo's was not something that would ever change, even when the tides were against him in a war-lost Japan.


Ogawacho Serenade
2014 · 2h
country: Japan
Manami runs the snack bar “Snack Bar Sayoko.” She raised her daughter Sayoko (Izumi Fujimoto) alone. Her father is known as Angel and works as a drag queen dancer. Sayoko doesn't know that Angel is her father. Manami and Angel have been longtime friends. After graduating from high school, Sayoko moved to Tokyo, but after experiencing several failed romances she goes back to her mother. Sayoko becomes aware that her mom's snack bar is having financial difficulties and may shut down. She decides to open an Okama bar (drag queen bar) and asks her mom's longtime friend Angel for help


The Eternal Zero
2013 · 2h 24m
country: Japan
A brother and sister learn their biological grandfather was a kamikaze pilot who died during World War II. During their research into his life, they get conflicting accounts from his former comrades about his character and how he joined his squadron.


Always: Sunset on Third Street '64
2012 · 2h 22m
country: Japan
As the Tokyo Olympics usher in a wave of rapid modernisation, the residents of Third Street face new beginnings as Mutsuko becomes involved with a seemingly perfect young doctor who may not be all he appears, while Chagawa struggles with his stalled writing career and what it truly means to be a father to the boy he has raised as his own.


Oba: The Last Samurai
2011 · 2h 8m
country: Japan
In 1944, the American military lands on the shores of Saipan. Refusing to commit suicide with his superiors or be forced into camps for prisoners of war, Captain Oba Sakae leads a group of his men and other similarly minded local residents into the mountains. Even after hearing reports of the Japanese military's surrender, Oba dismisses the reports as propaganda and continues to launch guerilla attacks against the American soldiers, earning him the nickname "The Fox". Soon, even the American commander who's charged with the task of capturing Oba comes to admire his persistent enemy.


Space Battleship Yamato
2010 · 2h 11m
country: Japan
In 2199, five years after the Gamilons began an invasion of Earth, the planet has been ravaged by the aliens' bombs. The remnants of humanity have fled underground to escape the irradiated surface. One day, former pilot Susumu Kodai discovers a capsule sent from the planet Iscandar that tells of a device that can remove the radiation from the Earth's surface. The Earth Defense Force rebuilds the battleship Yamato with a new type of propulsion system to make the 148,000 light year trip to Iscandar in hopes of saving the Earth. Within one year, the radiation will drive the rest of humanity to extinction.


K-20: The Fiend with Twenty Faces
2008 · 2h 17m
country: Japan
In an alternate version of 1949 Japan in which World War II never happened, the Japanese capital of Teito is home to both an ultra rich upper class and the dirt poor masses. The city is thrown into a state of panic when a phantom thief called “The Kaijin (Fiend) with 20 Faces” (K-20 for short) begins to use his mysterious abilities to steal from the rich and give to the poor. One day a circus acrobat named Heikichi Endo (Takeshi Kaneshiro) is framed for K-20’s crimes and becomes determined to clear his name. He teams up with K-20’s next target, a wealthy duchess named Yoko Hashiba (Takako Matsu) and her detective fiancé (Toru Nakamura), to take K-20 down once and for all.


Always: Sunset on Third Street 2
2007 · 2h 26m
country: Japan
A year has passed in postwar Tokyo, and struggling writer Chagawa enters the Akutagawa Prize competition in hopes of securing a better future for the boy in his care, while the Suzuki family unexpectedly take in a new relative who looks down on their humble way of life.


Three for the Road
2007 · 1h 48m
country: Japan


Check It Out, Yo!
2006 · 1h 57m
country: Japan
Tomboy Yui (Mao Inoue) brings her 3 male friends along with her to see a live performance of local Okinawan rap group, “Workaholic”. Upon witnessing the crowd reaction, the boys decide to start a rap group of their own to impress chicks—while Toru (Hayato Ichihara) has the added motivation of impressing his older, more sophisticated love interest Nagisa (Ayumi Ito). With only 2 weeks to learn how to play instruments and prepare for their first show, the performance is predictably humiliating. In order to save pride they decide to give it another shot, but this time they ditch the instruments for a sampler and stay truer to themselves. Will Toru be able to capture Nagisa’s heart? Will Yui ever confess her love to Toru or will she just keep practicing her advanced pro wrestling techniques on him instead?


Always - Sunset on Third Street
2005 · 2h 13m
country: Japan
In 1958 postwar Tokyo, the residents of a humble Third Street neighbourhood struggle, dream, and grow together as rapid modernisation transforms their lives beneath the shadow of the newly rising Tokyo Tower.


Scrap Heaven
2005 · 1h 57m
country: Japan
The lives of a young cop, a sanitation worker and a brooding pharmacist violently intersect on a bus that's hijacked by a suicidal political flunky, then cross paths again months later.


Lady Joker
2004 · 2h 1m
country: Japan
Men and women caught up in a downward spiral of corruption, discrimination, poverty and death are the focus of this detective-thriller/social-drama inspired by the unsolved 1984 kidnapping of a Japanese candy company president.


69
2004 · 1h 54m
country: Japan
Hoping to catch a girl's attention, high school students Ken and Adama cook up an ambitious plan. They plan a festival that combines film, theater, and rock music, and develop their project into a school road block. This plan however catches the attention of television stations and newspapers, and soon even the cops became involved in this teenage adventure.


The Boat to Heaven
2003 · 1h 49m
country: Japan
A young boy, Masahiko Sakurai, grows up in Nagasaki where he sees the clear blue ocean everyday. His mother wants him to be a violinist. To make her dream come true, Masahiko goes to Tokyo to learn the violin, and stays with his aunt, Setsuko, in Kamakura near Tokyo. Director Mitsutoshi Tanaka's adaptation of Masashi Sada's novel of the same name received the 21st Japanese Cinema Reconstruction and Promotion Award and the 46th Blue Ribbon Award for Best Supporting Actor.


Out
2002 · 1h 59m
country: Japan
When pregnant lunchbox factory worker Yayoi has finally taken all the abuse she can handle, she strangles her brutish husband and disposes of the body parts, piece by piece. She's soon joined by three down on their luck housewives who murder their own husbands and find various ways to hide the evidence.


Returner
2002 · 1h 56m
country: Japan
A young woman from the future forces a local gunman to help her stop an impending alien invasion which will wipe out the human race.


The Laughing Frog
2002 · 1h 36m
country: Japan
A woman has a fine life with rewarding work, a nice house, and a serious boyfriend in the lowlands of Japan. In walks her long lost husband who years ago disappeared and abandoned her. The wife allows her lost husband to secretly live in her house. More specifically, he lives in the wife's closet. The closet has a peep hole, so he does nothing day and night but watch his wife live her life.


Laundry
2002 · 2h 6m
country: Japan
A young man named Teru, mentally altered by a childhood injury, runs a laundry and falls for Mizue, a lonely young woman with internal scars.


There's Always Tomorrow - The Movie
2001 · 1h 58m
country: Japan
Office drama wherein a mediocre salaryman struggling hard to face a dream.


Juvenile
2000 · 1h 37m
country: Japan
11-year-old Yusuke and his classmates camp in the woods and see a strange light. They discover a small metallic object like a robot which talks, calls himself Tetra and knows Yusuke's name. Tetra can create wonderful gadgets but actually has to save the world with Yusuke's help from extraterrestrials with bad intentions.


Begging for Love
1998 · 2h 15m
country: Japan
During a quest to find a Taiwanese father's grave, disturbing memories of child abuse are aroused.


Haunted School 3
1997 · 1h 36m
country: Japan
Third installment of the "Gakko No Kaidan" series follows the trek of several elementary school students as they wander into an alternate world that exists on the opposite side of a school mirror. Nishida Naomi (the hapless teacher in "Gakko No Kaidan 2") returns as the teacher who accompanies the children on their journey into the surreal universe.


Parasite Eve
1997 · 2h
country: Japan
A scientist realizes his dead wife is an organization of mitochondria bent on making a new species that will wipe out humanity.


Haunted School
1995 · 1h 41m
country: Japan
A young girl wanders into a wing of her elementary school that has been abandoned for years and is rumored to be haunted. When she doesn't come back, a group of her classmates go looking for her, only to find that they, too, are trapped inside. They must somehow find their way to safety, and quickly, because the rumors of ghosts are turning out to be true.


It's a Summer Vacation Everyday
1994 · 1h 34m
country: Japan
The Rinkaiji family, by all appearances, is a well-to-do Japanese family. The father, Nariyuki, works in an elite corporation, which gives his wife Yoshiko status in their suburban neighborhood. But the daughter Sugina, who herself has secretly stopped going to school because she is being bullied. One day, they discover that Nariyuki has quit his job. As Nariyuki decides to find a new job along with Sugina, Yoshiko, a firm believer in a life based on the company, soon finds her world falling apart.


The Games Teachers Play
1992 · 1h 46m
country: Japan
The story of an unconventional teacher facing up to his unruly and apathetic class.


Detective Story
1992 · 1h 27m
country: Japan