Kazuo Hara

Kazuo Hara

Directing
1945-06-08
Ube, Yamaguchi, Japan

Biography

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 also earned him the Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Award. In 2017 he released the documentary Sennan Asbestos Disaster which received the 2017 Audience Award at the Tokyo Filmex International Film Festival and the 2017 BIFF Mecenat Award at the Busan International Film Festival. His documentary works often depict people who push against the boundaries of propriety and obedience in Japanese society.

Known For & Full Filmography7 Titles

#1Shin Godzilla

Movie - 2016, 2h 15m as Biology Professor

7.2 / 10
ActionSci-FiHorror

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.

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#2National Kid

Drama Series - 1960, 16 episodes as Tomohiro

7.5 / 10
Action & AdventureSci-Fi & Fantasy

National Kid is a Japanese TV series produced by Toei Company in 1960. Created by mangaka Daiji Kazumine, it was commissioned by Panasonic, then known as Matsushita Electric, to promote the National brand. Although not very famous in Japan, the series has obtained cult status in Brazil, where it was very popular.

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#3The Stars and the Moon are Holes in the Sky

Movie - 2025, 2h 15m as man in bar

5.3 / 10
Drama

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.

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#4Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974

Movie - 1974, 2h 15m as Himself

6.8 / 10
Documentary

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.

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#5Tokiwa: The Manga Apartment

Movie - 1996, 2h 15m as Kato

6.3 / 10
Drama

There still stands a famous apartment building where such prominent manga artists as Tezuka Osamu, Shotaro Ishinomori and Fujio Akatsuka once lived, worked, and shared experiences.

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#6Devotion: A Film About Ogawa Productions

Movie - 2002, 2h 15m as himself

10.0 / 10
Documentary

Devotion investigates the extremely complex and heirarchical relationships among a committed group of Japanese filmmakers who dedicated up to 30 years of their lives making films for one man-Ogawa Shinsuke. Members of Ogawa Pro filmed the student movement of the late 60's; the fight by farmers to save their land from government confiscaton for the Narita airport at Sanrizuka; and the village life of a small farming community, Magino Village, in northern Japan. These heartbreaking and sometimes funny stories have never been told on film before. Rare footage, stills, and diaries with interviews with Oshima Nagisa, Hara Kazuo and Robert Kramer make this historical inquiry visually exciting as well as valuable.

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#7A Painful Pair

Movie - 2002, 2h 15m Main Cast Role

6.0 / 10
ComedyRomanceDrama

Ryo and Natsu love each other immensely. They are also able to feel each other's pain. Their relationship is troubled when Ryo allows himself to be seduced by an office employee.

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