Rank | Title | Gross |
---|---|---|
1 | Bayside Shakedown | ¥5.00 billion |
2 | Pokémon: The First Movie | ¥4.15 billion |
3 | Doraemon: Nobita's Great Adventure in the South Seas | ¥2.10 billion |
A list of films released in Japan in 1998 (see 1998 in film).
Ishirō Honda was a Japanese filmmaker who directed 46 feature films in a career spanning five decades. He is acknowledged, along with Akira Kurosawa, as the most internationally successful Japanese filmmaker prior to Hayao Miyazaki and one of the founders of modern disaster film, with his films having a significant influence on the film industry. Despite directing many drama, war, documentary, and comedy films, Honda is best remembered for directing and co-creating the kaiju genre with special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya.
Invasion of Astro-Monster is a 1965 kaiju film directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. It is the sixth film in the Godzilla franchise and Shōwa period. The film was a Japanese-American co-production; it was the second collaboration between Toho Co., Ltd. and UPA. The film stars Akira Takarada, Nick Adams, Kumi Mizuno, Akira Kubo, and Yoshio Tsuchiya, with Haruo Nakajima as Godzilla, Masaki Shinohara as Rodan, and Shoichi Hirose as King Ghidorah. In the film, aliens plead with humanity to borrow Godzilla and Rodan to defeat King Ghidorah, only to betray the humans and unleash the monsters on the Earth.
Ernesto Gastaldi is an Italian screenwriter. Film historian and critic Tim Lucas described Gastaldi as the first Italian screenwriter to specialize in horror and thriller films. Gastaldi worked within several popular genres including pepla, Western and spy films.
Varan the Unbelievable is a 1958 Japanese kaiju film directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. Produced and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd, it stars Kōzō Nomura, Ayumi Sonoda, and Koreya Senda, with Haruo Nakajima as Varan. In the film, a reporter's investigation into two mysterious deaths in Japan's mountains leads to the discovery of a giant lake monster, wrecking its way towards civilization.
Gemini is a 1999 horror film by Shinya Tsukamoto, loosely based on an Edogawa Ranpo story, which pursues his theme of the brutally physical and animalistic side of human beings rearing its ugly head underneath a civilized veneer, present in previous films like Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) and Tokyo Fist (1995), in what is a new territory for Tsukamoto—a story set in the late Meiji era (1868–1912) with no stop-motion photography and no industrial setting.
After the Rain is a 1999 Japanese and French film. The story is based on the last script written by Akira Kurosawa and is directed by his former assistant director of 28 years, Takashi Koizumi. It was awarded a Japanese Academy Award in 1999. It was chosen as Best Film at the Japan Academy Prize ceremony.
Masayuki Ochiai is a Japanese film director. His films include Kansen and Saimin.
Nobuhiko Obayashi was a Japanese director, screenwriter and editor of films and television advertisements. He began his filmmaking career as a pioneer of Japanese experimental films before transitioning to directing more mainstream media, and his resulting filmography as a director spanned almost 60 years. He is best known as the director of the 1977 horror film House, which has garnered a cult following. He was notable for his distinct surreal filmmaking style, as well as the anti-war themes commonly embedded in his films.
This film was screened at the 1998 Toronto Film Festival.