At 94, Japanese director Yamada Yoji is still hungry for success. With 91 feature films under his belt as director, he remains sprightly, gently mischievous, campaigning and determined to keep working.

Yamada Yoji is 94, has 91 feature films under his belt as director, and remains sprightly, gently mischievous, campaigning and determined to keep working.

At the Tokyo International Film Festival this year, Yamada was presented with a lifetime achievement award and set as a counterpoint in an on-stage conversation with Lee Sang-il, director of Kokuho, a detail-obsessed drama film about frenemy actors who both play female roles in the kabuki theatre industry. 

Kokuho has become the highest grossing live-action film in Japan for decades, grossed over ¥16.6 billion/US$108 million to date, been named as Japan’s Oscars candidate and earned Lee the Kurosawa Akira Award from the Tokyo festival – an honour that Yamada received in 2004.  

“Kokuho” means ‘national treasure’ and is a label that seems appropriate for both helmers.

Yamada’s latest effort, Tokyo Taxi, is a complete contrast, not least because it is a road movie comedy, that unusually for a festival selection, is a remake of 2022 French film Driving Madeleine. And where Kokuho weighs in at nearly three hours, Tokyo Taxi whizzes by in 100 minutes. Nevertheless, in Yamada’s hands Taxi is a critic- and audience-pleasing charmer that is simultaneously a mannered slice of Japanese life, delivering reflections on the country’s ageing society, post-WWII rebuilding and changing social mores.

For the purpose of realism and context, Yamada added a few domestic, food scenes that were not in Madeleine, but he said that he did not have to reconceive the story. 

“I simply asked myself, if it were Japan, how would it go? A Japanese taxi driver and an elderly Japanese woman, their relationship would of course be different,” Yamada said. The elegant woman’s back-seat confession of marital rape and her eventual reaction to it are stunning in a Japanese context.

Yamada’s work has frequently explored mundane and everyday issues and Japan’s working-class. He is best-known for the 48 Tora-san films in which Atsumi Kiyoshi portrays a travelling salesman who is unlucky in love. So, his probing of Lee was from a position of experience.

“Usually, when you have two male leads, a woman is between them in some sort of triangle. But [in Kokuho], something entirely different lies between them – homosexuality. It’s this irrational romantic force that becomes the very theme of the story and makes this film extraordinary,” he said.

“The actors need to know I’m watching,” he added, referring to his habit of standing right next to the camera when filming his own movies. “They can feel the director’s gaze. I don’t understand how some directors give directions from a monitor, sometimes from another room.”

He acknowledged that was different to what Kurosawa advised, especially when filming kabuki theatre performances. Kurosawa once famously phoned public broadcaster NHK to complain camera proximity and movement during a performance that he was watching. “Kurosawa believed that the camera cannot get too close to the object. Instead, there should be a distance,” Yamada said. 

He acknowledged too that his technique contrasts with his own early attempts as an actor, when he was overwhelmed with self-consciousness. “The camera and the director create real tension. You feel that you are being watched. And that really left a strong impression on me.” 

He turned more serious when asked about the current status of the Japanese film industry and described its problems as “a national issue”.

“When I entered the industry 70 years ago, Japanese cinema was vibrant and internationally respected — we had Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, Ozu’s Tokyo Story, Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu. Now, Korea and China have surged ahead […] The Korean government backs its film industry. Japan should do the same. It’s a matter of cultural policy.”

Indeed, the government is taking some steps, such as introducing a location-shooting incentive scheme. And at a time when Japanese manufacturing is waning, the government has designated entertainment as a core industry.

But Yamada also acknowledged that some of the solutions to the problem he perceives are within the reach of filmmakers themselves. “[Japan’s] live-action films are far behind animation. We live-action directors need to carefully consider analysing the structure [of anime films] and incorporate some of their elements.”

▶ Published in ContentAsia's December 2025 Magazine