Takao Okawara

Godzilla film directors
← Kazuki Omori	Takao Okawara	Kensho Yamashita →

Takao Okawara Born December 20, 1949 Chiba, Japan Occupation Director First work Submersion of Japan (1973) Notable work Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992), Abduction (1997)

Takao Okawara (大河原 孝夫,   Ōkawara Takao) is a Japanese former film director. His works consist almost entirely of tokusatsu films, including four Godzilla entries—the Heisei-era Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992), Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993), and Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995), and the Millennium-era Godzilla 2000: Millennium (1999)—making him the franchise's third-most-prolific director behind Ishiro Honda and Jun Fukuda, as well as the only person to direct Godzilla films from two different eras.

After graduating from Waseda University in 1972, Okawara worked at Toho as an assistant to directors like Shiro Moritani and Toshio Masuda. Wanting to become a director in his own right, he penned a screenplay for a psychic horror movie with the intention of winning an award that would get the company's attention. The screenplay ultimately took second prize at the 13th Kido Awards in 1987, and Toho hired him to direct it as the special effects-infused Reiko, Psyche Resurrected in 1991. Though Reiko performed poorly, its producer Shogo Tomiyama, who doubled as co-producer of the Godzilla series, took a liking to Okawara and lobbied for him to direct Godzilla vs. Mothra. It went on to be a runaway success, becoming the highest-earning Japanese film of the year and setting a 24-year record for the best-performing Japanese Godzilla film. Okawara took five more assignments at Toho before his retirement; in addition to his Godzilla work, this included the tokusatsu fantasy epic Orochi, the Eight-Headed Dragon (1994) and his only non-tokusatsu film, Abduction (1997), which was nominated for 11 Japanese Academy Awards and won three.

Selected filmography

Assistant director

• Submersion of Japan (1973)
• Prophecies of Nostradamus (1974)

First assistant director

• The Return of Godzilla (1984)

Director

• Reiko, Psyche Resurrected (1991)
• Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992)
• Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)
• Orochi, the Eight-Headed Dragon (1994)
• Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995)
• Godzilla 2000: Millennium (1999)

Miscellaneous

• Reiko, Psyche Resurrected (1991) - Screenwriter

Trivia

• Okawara is the oldest living Godzilla film director. With Kazuki Omori's death in 2022, he also became the last living director of any pre-Millennium Godzilla movie.

External links

• Interview by David Milner (December 1993, archived)
• Interview by David Milner (July 1994, archived)
• Interview by David Milner (December 1995, archived)

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