Known for Camera
Katsumi Yanagishima (柳島 克巳, Yanagishima Katsumi; born 1950, Gifu Prefecture), also credited as Katsumi Yanagijima, is a Japanese cinematographer. Yanagishima has worked with Takeshi Kitano in many of his films, including A Scene at the Sea, Sonatine, Zatoichi, Kids Return, Kikujiro and Dolls. He won the Japan Academy Prize for best cinematography for Go! in 2002 and for Zatoichi in 2004. Battle Royale and The Grudge 2 are some of his other known films. Description above from the Wikipedia article Katsumi Yanagishima, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Born
August 13, 1950 (age 76)
Birthplace
Gifu, Japan
Filmography
50 films, 3 shows


Future History Credit
2026 · 1h 6m · JP


Gold Boy
2024 · JP
It was supposed to be a perfect crime... until it was witnessed. Based on a Chinese drama series with two billion total views, the film depicts a psychological battle between a murderer and three kids.


Let's Go Karaoke!
2024 · 1h 48m · JP
Satomi Oka is worried about his final choir competition but is accosted by a shadowy gangster, Kyouji Narita, who demands karaoke sessions with him.


The Three Sisters of Tenmasou Inn
2022 · 2h 30m · JP
Tenmasou is a long-established inn atop a mountain overlooking the sea, in a town called Mitsuse that exists between heaven and earth. The inn is run by Nozomi Tenma, the proprietress. Her younger sister Kanae works as a dolphin trainer. Their mother Keiko is the inn's elder proprietress, who is still resentful of her ex-husband that deserted his wife and family.


Ito
2021 · 1h 56m · JP
A shy country girl chooses a part-time job at a maid cafe where she serves customers while dressed up as a maid.


Caution, Hazardous Wife: The Movie
2021 · 2h · JP
At the end of the TV series of the same name, it is revealed that the husband works for the Public Security Bureau, and their marriage is a cover to keep her under surveillance. In spite of his mission, he falls in love with Nami and tries to convince her not to get involved in other people’s affairs. She is being monitored as a state-level security risk, and the bureau is unwilling to tolerate any more trouble from her. However, to save a friend, Nami runs out of the house and risks everything she has to confront the enemy. When she comes home, she finds her husband pointing a gun at her! A gunshot echoes through the quiet, upscale neighborhood…The movie picks up where the controversial ending of the drama series left off!!


Maki
2018 · 1h 29m · JP
Story of displacement, power, and vulnerability told through the relationship between a hostess, the bartender she loves, and the boss who controls them. The story is set in the underworld of the New York City's Japanese Diaspora.


Eating Women
2018 · 1h 51m · JP
Follows the daily lives of 8 women with different backgrounds through what they eat and whom they date.


Tokyo Capsule
2018 · 27m · JP


Outrage Coda
2017 · 1h 44m · FR
Five years after the all-out war between the Sanno and Hanabishi crime families, former yakuza boss Otomo works in South Korea for Mr. Chang, a noted fixer. When tensions rise between Chang and the Hanabishi, and Chang's life is endangered, Otomo returns to Japan to settle things once and for all.


Black Widow Business
2016 · 2h 7m
Kozo Nakase attends meetings for single widowers looking to remarry. He meets Sayoko Takeuchi and eventually marries her. Not longer after their marriage, Kozo Nakase suddenly collapses and dies. Kozo Nakase leaves everything to Sayako. The rest of his family are left out of his will including his daughter Tomomi. Tomomi hires a private investigator, Honda, to find out more about Sayoko.


Ryuzo and the Seven Henchmen
2015 · 2h 5m · JP
Ryuzo and his 7 former henchmen are all retired yakuza, but they now live as regular old men. One day, Ryuzo becomes the victim of a phishing fraud. He calls his 7 men together to reform their society.
Buy Bling, Get One Free
Buy Bling, Get One Free
2014 · 27m · JP
Dumped by his girlfriend, Kamono gets really down. 'What's wrong with my fashion?' he wonders a she's told off for being embarrassingly over-the-top with an odd fashion that nobody understands. One day though, a strange man offers him to become a fashion leader, a dreamlike opportunity. In a trance, Kamono follows this man to enter a strange and unimaginable world...


Midsummer's Equation
2013 · 2h 9m · JP
Masaharu Fukuyama reprises his role from 2008's "Suspect X," playing the physicist-cum-detective Manabu Yukawa. The scientist-sleuth arrives in an oceanside town to speak on a panel. But when a man turns up dead outside the inn where he's staying, Yukawa begins to unravel the connections that tie the victim to the activist daughter of the innkeepers, and a precocious boy who first appears on a train—and keeps popping up. It's a Sherlock Holmes mystery with an environmental twist, and one that should please fans of a classic whodunnit.


Like Someone in Love
2012 · 1h 49m · FR
An old man and a young woman meet in Tokyo. She knows nothing about him, he thinks he knows her. He welcomes her into his home, she offers him her body. But the web that is woven between them in the space of twenty four hours bears no relation to the circumstances of their encounter.


Dreams for Sale
2012 · 2h 17m · JP
After losing their restaurant in a fire, a husband and wife come up with a strange plan to rebuild their shattered finances: marrying the husband off to a series of lonely women and defrauding them.


Beyond Outrage
2012 · 1h 52m · JP
As the police launch a full-scale crackdown on organized crime, it ignites a national yakuza struggle between the Sanno of the East and Hanabishi of the West. What started as an internal strife in Outrage has now become a nationwide war in Outrage Beyond.


Robo-G
2012 · 1h 52m · JP
Three engineers cannot make a robot work in time for a science show, and hire a man to inhabit the robot's shell to save their jobs. The robot's performance at the show attracts media attention and scrutiny from a science student.


Girls' Compass
2011 · 1h 53m · JP
Four high school girls, who are part of the legendary theatrical group known as "Rashinban," stops performing due to the sudden death of one member. Four years later the explanation of the girl's death is revealed and the other girls start a plan for revenge...


Outrage
2010 · 1h 49m · JP
When a tough yakuza gangster is betrayed by his bosses, it means all out war. Bodies pile up as he takes out everyone in his way to the top in a brutal quest for revenge.


Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler
2009 · 2h 10m · JP
Kaiji Ito moves to Japan after graduating from high school. Unable to find a job and frustrated with society at large, Kaiji spends his days gambling, vandalizing cars, and drinking booze. Two years later and his life is no better. A debt collector named Endo arrives to collect money owed. The debt collector offers two choices to Kaiji: spend 10 years paying off his loan or board a gambling boat for one night to repay his debt & possibly make a boat load of money. Could the debt collector Endo actually be setting up Kaiji? One way or another, for Kaiji it's going to be the night of his life.


Dear Doctor
2009 · 2h 7m · JP
Osamu Ino is a great doctor who is beloved in his rural village. His knowledge and dedication make an equally strong impression on his reluctant medical intern, Keisuke Soma. But, Soma and the villagers reconsider their opinion when they learn about a shameful incident from Dr. Ino's past. Now the once-respected doctor must account for his past actions.


Achilles and the Tortoise
2008 · 2h · JP
Machisu is a painter. He never had the success he thinks he is entitled to. Regardless of this, he always remains trying to be successful. His wife Sachiko keeps supporting him, despite all setbacks.


God's Puzzle
2008 · 2h 14m · JP
A set of twins -- one a hard-working student and the other a drifter -- team up with a dropout to unlock the secrets of the universe and to build one of their own.


Shutter
2008 · 1h 25m · US
A newly married couple discovers disturbing, ghostly images in photographs they develop after a tragic accident. Fearing the manifestations may be connected, they investigate and learn that some mysteries are better left unsolved.


Glory to the Filmmaker!
2007 · 1h 48m · JP
Takeshi Kitano plays a version of himself in which he's a struggling director cycling through a number of different genres in an effort to complete his latest project.


The Grudge 2
2006 · 1h 42m · US
A young woman encounters a malevolent supernatural force while searching for her missing sister in Tokyo, a mean high school prank goes horribly wrong, and strange things begin happening in a Chicago apartment building.


Sea Without Exit
2006 · 2h 1m · JP
Koji Namiki is a young pitcher who has shown great promise on the diamond by winning the National High School Baseball Championships. Shortly after entering college, however, Namiki's athletic career is called into question after he suffers a severe elbow injury. But despite a disheartening diagnosis, Namiki is determined to make a comeback. With a little help from his teammates it appears that he is getting back on track, too. Recently, he's even developed a new slow ball that he and his teammates have christened "the magic pitch". Fate can be a cruel mistress though, and when World War II breaks out Namiki the entire team join the navy and begin a training regiment specifically designed to prepare them for the ultimate darkness, an submarine attack method also known as "The Human Torpedo".


Takeshis'
2005 · 1h 48m · JP
Beat Takeshi lives the busy and sometimes surreal life of a showbiz celebrity. One day he meets his blond lookalike named Kitano, a shy convenience store cashier, who, still an unknown actor, is waiting for his big break. After their paths cross, Kitano seems to begin hallucinating about becoming Beat.


Ashura
2005 · 1h 59m · JP
Adapted from the successful play, the film takes place in 19th-century Japan, where a war between demons and their slayers is fought. Izumo, a kabuki actor with a demon-slaying past, meets and falls in love with Tsubaki. However, something is not right, as mysterious marks appear on her body as time progresses. At the same time, it is announced that Ashura, the queen of all demons, will be resurrected and bring destruction to the universe.


Zatoichi
2003 · 1h 56m · JP
Blind traveler Zatoichi is a master swordsman and a masseur with a fondness for gambling on dice games. When he arrives in a village torn apart by warring gangs, he sets out to protect the townspeople.


Samurai Resurrection
2003 · 1h 45m · JP
Shiro Amasuka, dead leader of the Shimbara Revolt is resurrected from hell with the desire of overthrowing the shogunate for killing his companions. To do this , he resurrects an army of living dead swordsmen. Between him and his goal, only Yagyu Jubei stands...


Dolls
2002 · 1h 54m · JP
Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto and Sawako, a young couple whose relationship is about to be broken apart by the former's parents, who have insisted their son take part in an arranged marriage to his boss' daughter.


GO
2001 · 2h 2m · JP
Sugihara, a Japanese-born, third-generation Korean teenager struggles to find a place in a society that will not accept him.


Run Ichiro Run
2001 · 1h 45m · JP
Various individuals named Ichiro undergo life-changing events while being inspired by the baseball player Ichiro. A heartwarming movie about the people who root for the baseball player Ichiro, and their struggles to make their own dreams come true.


Battle Royale
2000 · 1h 54m · JP
In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act.


Brother
2000 · 1h 53m · JP
A Japanese Yakuza gangster's deadly existence in his homeland gets him exiled to Los Angeles, where he is taken in by his little brother and his brother's gang.


Kikujiro
1999 · 2h 1m · JP
Brash, loudmouthed and opportunistic, Kikujiro is the unlikely companion for Masao who is determined to see the mother he has never met. The two begin a series of adventures which soon turns out to be a whimsical journey of laughter and tears with a wide array of surprises and unique characters along the way.


Suicide Bus
1998 · 1h 41m · JP
A young girl named Mitsuki receives a ticket for a bus tour from her uncle. The tour appears to be normal (expect that everyone appears to be quite sombre), but Mitsuki learns its true purpose: the other passengers and the tour manager have a suicide pact to send the bus over a cliff so their families can collect the insurance money.


Kids Return
1996 · 1h 47m · JP
Shinji and Masaru spend most of their school days harassing fellow classmates and playing pranks. They drop out and Shinji becomes a small-time boxer, while Masaru joins up with a local yakuza gang. However, the world is a tough place.


Getting Any?
1995 · 1h 48m · JP
While pursuing his dream of having car sex, a goofy middle-aged man makes all the wrong moves and ends up enrolling in a number of crazy escapades.


Sonatine
1993 · 1h 34m · JP
Murakawa, an aging Tokyo yakuza tiring of gangster life, is sent by his boss to Okinawa along with a few of his henchmen to help end a gang war, supposedly as mediators between two warring clans. He finds that the dispute between the clans is insignificant and whilst wondering why he was sent to Okinawa at all, his group is attacked in an ambush. The survivors flee and make a decision to lay low at the beach while they await further instructions.


Jingi
1991 · 1h 45m · JP
Based on the comic by Ayumi Tachihara


A Scene at the Sea
1991 · 1h 41m · JP
A deaf garbage collector happens upon a broken and discarded surfboard. The discovery plants in him dreams of becoming a surf champion. Encouraged by his also deaf girlfriend, he persists against all odds.


Kinpira
1990 · 1h 35m · JP
A yakuza boss's daughter starts a pirate TV broadcast.


Boiling Point
1990 · 1h 36m · JP
Masaki, a baseball player and gas-station attendant, gets into trouble with the local Yakuza and goes to Okinawa to get a gun to defend himself. There he meets Uehara, a tough gangster, who is in serious debt to the yakuza and planning revenge.


cf Girl
1989 · 1h 38m · JP
The film is an adaptation of the novel of the same title by Takashi Kitajima.


Roppongi Banana Boys
1989 · 1h 30m · JP
A stylish light comedy about the “Banana boys”— two boys who were born and raised in Roppongi who are still growing up. It is based on the light novel of the same name written by Takashi Kitajima