Takashi Yamazaki (山崎 貴, Yamazaki Takashi; born June 12, 1964) is a Japanese filmmaker and visual effects supervisor. Known for his blockbusters featuring advanced visual effects, he is considered a leading figure in the Japanese film industry. Yamazaki is the recipient of multiple accolades, including an Academy Award, eight Japanese Academy Awards, five Nikkan Sports Film Awards, two Hochi Film Awards, and an Asian Film Award. His films have collectively grossed over $523 million worldwide.
Yamazaki found employment at visual effects and animation studio Shirogumi in 1986, and has remained there throughout his career. His first directorial features were the science fiction films Juvenile (2000) and Returner (2002), for which he became known as the "Japanese James Cameron". He later gained further notice in Japan by directing film adaptations of popular anime, novels, and manga, including Always: Sunset on Third Street (2005), Space Battleship Yamato (2010), The Eternal Zero (2013), and Stand by Me Doraemon (2014); the latter two films both earned a total of nine awards at the 38th Japan Academy Film Prize. Yamazaki's career later advanced with The Great War of Archimedes, Dragon Quest: Your Story, Lupin III: The First (all 2019), and Stand by Me Doraemon 2 (2020).
His 2023 kaiju epic, Godzilla Minus One, became the most successful Japanese Godzilla film of all time and one of his highest-grossing films. Yamazaki and the visual effects team also became the first Japanese crew ever to receive the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. In 2024, Yamazaki was included in Gold House's annual list of 100 Most Impactful Asians. He is currently working on Godzilla Minus Zero, the sequel to Godzilla Minus One, and his Hollywood debut.
Takashi Yamazaki was born on June 12, 1964, in Matsumoto, Nagano, to Yoshisuke Yamazaki, a baker, and Kikuko. On his childhood, Yamazaki reflected: "My parents raised me by letting me do what I wanted freely. I think that has shaped a big part of who I am today". He also has a younger sister named Satsuki.
Yamazaki was first introduced to film by the "Umbrella Program" as a child; in 2023 he reflected that Ishirō Honda's Matango (1963) and King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) may have been among the first movies he ever saw. Growing up, Yamazaki was influenced to work in the film industry by monster movies and American films such as the 1977 American science fiction films Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He filmed his directorial debut on 8 mm film with the assistance of a friend during his third year at Matsumoto Shiritsu Shimizu Junior High School. This 1979 science fiction short, entitled Glory, was lost for 43 years until it was rediscovered in 2022 and screened in the director's hometown.
In 1984, Yamazaki began working as a miniature builder for Tatsuo Shimamura. Following his graduation from Asagaya College of Art and Design in 1986, he officially became an employee at Shimamura's animation and special effects studio Shirogumi in Chōfu, Tokyo. In 2026, Yamazaki confirmed on social media that he had worked on the puppets for the original cover art of the 1993 game Star Fox.
After working on the Eko Eko Azarak series and Parasite Eve (1997), Yamazaki and his team at Shirogumi started pre-production on their feature NUE. The team spent two years preparing the project in collaboration with Robot Communications and they even went location scouting in Australia. Yamazaki, who was still heading the visual effects for up to three commercials monthly at this point, concluded that the film would require him to create the film on a relatively enormous budget of ¥2 billion, well above the average budget of ¥100 million usually given to first-time directors. Thus, Robot president Shūji Abe deemed NUE too expensive and requested that Yamazaki scrap it and attempt to make his directorial debut with a smaller scale.
2000–2007: First directorial features and breakthrough
Shortly after abandoning NUE, Yamazaki converted the idea for his debut feature film, Juvenile (2000), which he directed, wrote, and headed the visual effects for. A science fiction film, Juvenile is about a group of elementary school students who find a talking alien robot while camping in the woods and soon discover that it is their only hope in saving the planet from incoming evil alien invaders. Initially, Juvenile was to be shot on entirely on location by Kōzō Shibasaki under Yamazaki's direction on a budget of roughly ¥100 million, with Kiyoko Shibuya directing the visual effects on a budget of ¥50 million under Yamazaki's supervision. However, Abe decided to increase the film's budget to ¥450 million in order to allow Yamazaki to make it a "proper movie for the summer vacation lineup". Toho distributed Juvenile in July 2000 and it grossed ¥1.1 billion, making it the fifteenth highest-grossing Japanese film of that year. It was also shown at the 2000 Giffoni Film Festival.
His next film, the science fiction actioner Returner (2002), follows the story of Milly, a young woman living in a war-torn future, who is recruited by a mysterious time traveler named Miyamoto. The film was distributed by Toho in Japan on August 31, 2002 and was later in American theaters in October of the following year, where it was critically savaged. Western critics accused Yamazaki of plagiarising from popular American science fiction films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), The Terminator (1984), and The Matrix (1999). After its release, Yamazaki proposed a sequel to Returner but Abe asked him to make a film set in the Shōwa era instead.
Yamazaki's breakthrough came when he departed from the science fiction genre to create his third directorial feature, Always: Sunset on Third Street (2005), an adaptation Ryōhei Saigan's manga series Sunset on Third Street. Set in Tokyo during postwar Japan, this film tells the "heartwarming" story of the residents living at Third Street: Ryunosuke, a writer from the countryside; Norifumi, an auto mechanic; and sake bar owner Hiromi. Always: Sunset on Third Street – starring Hidetaka Yoshioka, Shinichi Tsutsumi, Koyuki, Maki Horikita, and Kenta Suga – was released to overwhelmingly positive reviews and grossed ¥3.23 billion, ranking fifteenth at the Japanese box office. In 2005, film critic Tadao Satō regarded the film as a milestone in the usage for computer-generated imagery and acclaimed Yamazaki's direction. At the 29th Japanese Academy Awards, the film won twelve awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Yamazaki next directed, co-wrote (with Ryota Kosawa), and headed the visual effects for Always: Sunset on Third Street 2 (2007), a sequel to Always: Sunset on Third Street also based on the manga series. The film opens with an "imaginary sequence" of Godzilla attacking Tokyo before returning to the story of the residents of Third Street. Yamazaki stated that he is a lifelong fan of the Godzilla franchise and incorporated the opening scene in order to "start with something fresh from the first film" and added that "having Godzilla destroy Tokyo Tower with his oral beam was a great way to surprise audiences". He also noted that the "two minutes (in which Godzilla appears) required a tremendous amount of work", with half of the crew having to work on the sequence over the course of six months. Upon its November 3 release, Always: Sunset on Third Street 2 became Yamazaki's biggest box office hit, ranking the third-highest-grosser at Japanese box office that year.
2008–2018: Directing film adaptations
In 2008, Yamazaki turned to assisting his fellow Asagaya College of Art and Design graduate and future wife, Shimako Satō, with the visual effects and screenplay for her action film, K-20: Legend of the Mask. Based on a novel by Sō Kitamura, K-20 is set in an alternate reality version of Japan during the 1940s and follows the mysterious masked antihero known as "K-20" who robs the rich and powerful, leaving behind a trail of dismay. K-20 was released in December 2008 and grossed ¥2 billion, making it the eighteenth highest-grossing Japanese film of 2009.