Director

Katsuhito Ishii

Directing

Career Snapshot

Explained

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Directed credits

Established

Strong directing catalog.

TMDB popularity

0.5

Low visibility

TMDB internal trend index. Higher usually means more searches and page activity now.

Directed movies: 18Directed series: 3All crew credits: 26

TMDB ID: 107668

IMDb ID: nm0411002

Known for: Directing

Born: December 31, 1966

Age: 59

Place of birth: Niigata, Japan

Gender: Male

Adult content flag: No

Career span: 1990 - 2025

Years active: 36

Average TMDB rating: 7.09

Wikidata: Q1646217

Frequent jobs

Director (18)Creative Director (2)Animation Director (1)Background Designer (1)Creative Consultant (1)Original Series Design (1)Screenplay (1)Story (1)

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Biography

Katsuhito Ishii is a Japanese film director. After graduating from Musashino Art University, Katsuhito Ishii got a job at Tohokushinsha Film and began directing commercials in 1992, receiving numerous awards in this field. His first short film The Promise of August, shot in 1995, went on to receive the Japanese Film Grand Prix in the Fantastic Video Section of the 1995 Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival. He made his feature debut with Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl, based on the visual novel by cult manga artist Minetaro Mochizuki and starring regular collaborator Tadanobu Asano. Ishii quickly followed his success with another box office hit, Party 7 (2000), which featured Masatoshi Nagase, Yoshio Harada and Tadanobu Asano among others. Between the years 2001 and 2002, he created a series of short films including the 3D animated dialogue piece Hal & Bons and the 2D animated space opera Trava Fist Planet. Among other commercials and select TV projects including the short Black Room which starred Takuya Kimura, and Music Power Go Go!, He collaborated with Production I.G for the animation sequence of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume 1. In 2004, his fourth feature film The Taste of Tea won Best Feature Film at the Hawaii International Film Festival. In 2006, he co-directed the feature film Funky Forest with fellow Japanese film makers and old school friends Shunichiro Miki and ANIKI. He founded his own production company, Nice Rainbow, in October 2006.