Yoshimitsu Morita
Career. Self-taught, first making shorts on 8 mm film during the 1970s, he made his feature film debut with "No Yōna Mono" ("Something Like It", 1981). In 1983 he won acclaim for his movie "Kazoku Gēmu (The Family Game)", which was voted the best film of the year by Japanese critics in the "Kinema Junpo" magazine poll. This black comedy dealt with then-recent changes in the structure of Japanese home life. It also earned Morita the Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Award. The director has been nominated for eight Japanese Academy Awards, winning the 2004  Best Director award for "Ashura no Gotoku" ("Like Asura", 2003). He also won the award for best director at the 21st Yokohama Film Festival for "39 keihō dai sanjūkyū jō" ("Keiho", 2003) and the award for best screenplay at the 18th Yokohama Film Festival for "Haru" (1996). "Sanjuro" (2007) is a remake of the Kurosawa film Death and legacy. Yoshimitsu Morita died from acute liver failure in Tokyo in December 2011. His last film "Bokutachi kyūkō: A ressha de ikō" ("Take the "A" Train", 2011), a romantic comedy about two male train enthusiasts, was released in Japan in March 2012