Director

Hideo Nakata was born in Okayama, Japan in 1961. After graduating in 1985 from Tokyo University, Nakata started his career as an assistant director at Nikkatsu Film Studios. In 1992, he made his debut as a director with TV dramas "The Haunted Inn," "The Cursed Doll" and "The Ghost of the Waterfall."

In 1993, Nakata traveled to England on a Japanese government scholarship and, while studying British cinema, he planned and shot "The Man with Four Names," a documentary on film director Joseph Losey.

Returning to Japan in 1994, Nakata made his feature film debut with "Don't Look Up" (1996), a horror movie set in an old film studio, much like the one in which he once worked. In 1998 and 1999, Nakata quickly ascended to mega-director status with two enormous horror-entertainment hits "Ring" and "Ring 2." Both films have been released in many Asian countries, and have come to be highly regarded by both audiences and critics around the world.

In 2000 he began working on "Sleeping Bride," adapted from the comic by Tezuka Osamu, and "Sadistic and Masochistic," a documentary film about one of Nakata's heroes, director Onuma Masaru.

FILMOGRAPHY

Last Scene (2002)
Dark Water (2002)
Sadistic and Masochistic (2000)
Garasu no nou (1999)
Chaos (1999)
Ringu 2 (1998)
Ringu (1998)
Don't Look Up (1996)

INTERVIEW WITH HIDEO NAKATA (EXTRACTS)

Q: You changed the original story and made the female character play the main part of the movie just like you did in your prior movie "Ring." Is this easier for you?

Nakata: I just like to see and also to make movies that spotlight female characters. The original story of this movie "A woman who wanted to be kidnapped" was written from a man's viewpoint and Satomi acts like Komiyama's puppet. Just like Hitchcock's "Vertigo," men are used by women and the story ends when men hound women too close.

Q: Do you instruct acting to actors and actresses?

Nakata: Yes. I think I tell them in details...especially to actresses. In ratio, 90% of my attention is paid to actresses. The rest is 10%. Actors are OK if they do not have any mistakes.

Q: Why does 90% go toward actresses?

Nakata: Maybe I am essentially a woman. I do not know. I like directors, who are best at depicting the life of women in the figure of the main actress, such as Hitchcock, Max Ophuls and George Cukor very much. I search something I do not have in women. There is some urge.

Q: Why did you start to make a series of horror movies?

Nakata: It was accidental. Eight years ago before I went to Britain to research Joseph Losey, I directed a TV series. At that time the producer told me to bring some of my works to show people there and he let me make three episodes of a short TV series. Those happened to be horror.

Q: Your first horror movie, "Don't Look Up," is a project that comes from your experience at a film studio.

Nakata: It was a project I came up with, but I had to start a new project in order to obtain funding to finish the documentary film on Joseph Losey, which I was making at the time (as opposed to my really wanting to make a horror movie). I actually had lots of new projects--horror is one of those. So my motivation to make horror movies is not pure.

Q: People say "Ring" revived the horror movie boom.

Nakata: I think anxiety and fear are enjoyable as entertainment in a theater that is enclosed in a safe space. Its popularity changed over time, but the feeling has always been there since the birth of the movie, over one hundred years ago when the Lumiere Brothers projected "Arrival of Train" and the audience ran away. To the audience of the time, it was fearful. The birth of film and birth of fear cannot be separated. It is the same as provoking a tear or laughter. As long as film exists as something that provokes the humanÕs essential emotions, horror films will continue to exist.