The best Kaoru Okunuki’s movies

Taking place thirty years before the events of Ringu, Ringu 0 provides the shocking background story of how the girl on the video became a deadly, vengeful spirit.

Leaving her provincial home, teenage Mutsuko arrives in Tokyo by train to take a job in a major automotive company but finds that she is employed by a small auto repair shop owned by Norifumi Suzuki. Suzuki's hair-trigger temper is held somewhat in check by the motherly instincts of his wife, Tomoe, and his young son Ippei immediately bonds with Mutsuko as if she were his older sister. The Suzuki shop lies almost in the shadow of the Tokyo Tower as it rises steadily above the skyline during construction in 1958.

A detective investigates a series of murders. A possible serial killer might be on a rampage, since they all are in the same vicinity and by the same method, but as the evidence points toward the detective as the prime suspect, a ghost in red follows him, and he begins to question his identity. His realization of what seems to have really happened results in something much more sinister and larger in scope, and it leaves his psyche scarred.

A radio play is minutes away from airing at a Tokyo radio station. It is a weepy melodrama written by housewife Miyako, the winner of a competition run by the station. Suddenly, the hot-tempered lead actress Nokko decides she wants the name of her character to be Mary Jane and not Ritsuko. This leads to a chain of events which, live on-air, changes the play completely, taking it from an autobiographical fishing village romance to an ersatz American gangster drama cum disaster epic.

Schoolteacher Yohei is married to Miyoko. For the first time in 25 years they begin to live by themselves when their son marries and moves out. Then Yohei discovers that all’s not well in his marriage.

Kohei Kuryu returns to Tokyo, reunites with his former colleagues, and goes up against one of the most famous lawyers in Tokyo to solve a new case and team up with his best partner, Maiko Amemiya.

A young boy in a peaceful seaside town gets more than he bargained for when he takes home a mysterious egg. When it hatches, out comes a baby turtle that grows into a new version of Gamera. But will it become powerful enough in time to defeat the rampaging monster Zedus?

Mizuki’s husband Yusuke went missing for 3 years. He suddenly comes back home one day and asks Mizuki to go on a trip with him. Their trip consists of visiting the people that helped Yusuke on his previous travel. While travelling together, Misuki sees, touches and feels what Yusuke did for those 3 years.

On board at the boat Kanikosen, where fish and crabs preserves, forced workers to work under miserable conditions, with minimum wages. Some can not cope with conditions and even death from malnutrition, and is also the supervisor of the more vicious variety. Shinjo, one of the employees, trying to convince the others that they will get good luck and fortune in his next life, and persuades them because they commit suicide to get there faster. It ends, however, in a single major failure. Rather than flee Shinjo being picked up by a Russian ship. Once there, he is overwhelmed by the social conditions that are completely different from those he has just left and decided therefore to return to Kanikosen to save their employees.

Ataru, who suffers from “savant syndrome,” has the power to discover, observe, see through, and deduct microscopic evidence of unsolved cases. Why does he always go to the criminal sites? What explains his strange behavior? Meanwhile, a mystery unfolds with Ataru and a woman named Madoka, who is a killer. The woman possesses the same extraordinary memory and deductive reasoning abilities as Ataru. Who is she?

Ooshima Shino is a 1st-grade high school student. She has difficulties pronouncing words that start with vowels in front of people. Because of her speech impediment, she does not get along with others. Shino meets Kayo who likes music, but she is tone-deaf. They decide to start a band and Shino begins to change.

In 1985 Hokkaido, Akiko gets close to a record store clerk after he lends her his copy of a Yutaka Ozaki album.

A James Brown fanatic gangster decided to disband his own gang and see his long lost daughter before entering prison. Hoping to change his mind, his underlings planned to kidnap James Brown to convince him to perform privately for their boss.

A lonely Japanese girl reaches out to a former classmate.

Naoko meets Yusuke while staying on an island for medical treatment. Yusuke's graceful athletic figure captivates her eyes and she falls in love with him. But their relationship is soon broken after Yusuke's father dies while trying to save Naoko from drowning. The memory of Yusuke leads Naoko to the track, and six years later, they meet each other again at a Marathon competition. Naoko decides to become a manager to help Yusuke, a gifted runner, and they embark on training together to heal their sorrows from the past.

In 1868, after the fall of the Shogun-dominated Japan, the new government orders people from Awaji, near Kobe, to re-locate to the northern part of Hokkaido. These people once supported the now displaced Samurais of the older days. After two years, over 500 of them settled in their new land under the leadership of Hideaki, husband of Shino. However, as crops fail he is to go to Sapporo to learn new techniques of farming, leaving his wife and daughter for 5 years. All this time, the new community is constantly watched by the government which choose to again uproot them from their new homes.