Takao Okawara

Director

1949-12-20 · Tokyo, Japan

Takao Okawara (born December 20, 1949, in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese film director, writer and producer.

Most famous for his entries in the Heisei Godzilla series, Takao Okawara joined Tōhō in 1973, but would not get his first shot in the director's chair until 1980, when he joined Akira Kurosawa and Ishirō Honda on the film Kagemusha (1980). Four years later, he worked as an assistant director for the first Godzilla film of the Heisei series: The Return of Godzilla (1984). Okawara debuted as primary director seven years later on the film Reiko, the Psyche Resurrected (1991), which he also wrote. Okawara is the oldest living Godzilla film director. With Kazuki Omori's death in 2022, he also became the last living director of any pre-Millennium Godzilla movie.

• Kagemusha (1980) — Assistant Director
• The Return of Godzilla (1984) — First Assistant Director
• Godzilla 2000: Millennium (1999) — Director, Original Story
• Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995) — Director
• Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992) — Director
• Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993) — Director
• Godzilla 1985 (1985) — First Assistant Director
• Submersion of Japan (1973) — Assistant Director
• Prophecies of Nostradamus (1974) — Assistant Director
• The Imperial Navy (1981) — Assistant Director
• Orochi, the Eight-Headed Dragon (1994) — Director
• Zero Fighter (1976) — Assistant Director
• Reiko, the Psyche Resurrected (1991) — Director, Writer, Visual Effects Director
• The Gate of Youth (1975) — Assistant Director
• Abduction (1997) — Director
• The Gate of Youth Part 2 (1977) — Assistant Director
• Human Revolution II (1976) — Assistant Director
• The Longest Tunnel (1982) — Assistant Director
• The Goodbye Girls (1987) — Assistant Director
• The Last Days of Planet Earth (1981) — Assistant Director
• Tidal Wave (1975) — Assistant Director