Shinobu Yaguchi

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Shinobu Yaguchi (矢口史靖; born 30 May 1967) is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. He specializes in feel-good "zero to hero" films, where a group of people take up an unlikely activity, face a number of obstacles, but finally succeed.

His film Waterboys was particularly successful and led to a TV series which entered its third season in 2005.

[edit] Selected filmography

[edit] Director

2004 Swing Girls This comedy follows the unlikely (but fact-based) story of a group of girls who decide to form, of all things, a traditional jazz band. The cast is largely cast with actual members of the band performing their own numbers, mostly while wearing their high school sailor suit uniforms.

2002 Parco Fiction

2001 Waterboys The high concept, high school comedy is, like his later "Swing Girls," based in fact. This film relates the travails of a group of teenage boys who seek fame in, of all ventures, the world of synchronized swimming. This was later made into a popular eleven-part drama shown on Japanese TV.

1999 One Piece! A series of short films made in conjunction with Takuji Suzuki. The rules: the directors must create a short film without the use of any camera movement or editing - a story told in "one piece" of celluloid. This experiment enjoyed great success on the film festival circuit, and is now only available on an extended Japanese-only DVD. Not to be confused with the anime series.

1999 Adorenarin doraibu aka Adrenaline Drive. This widely-distributed low-budget romance tells the story of young driver's unfortunate encounter with yakuza gone bad - and the strange, terrifying chase that results.

1997 Himitsu no hanazono aka My Secret Cache The hilarious comedy of a bank teller who hopes she'll somehow luck into a vast sum of cash - and does, only to have it slip from her fingers. The film evolves into a series of wild adventures as she tries to regain that lost wealth. Not to be confused with the drama series.

1996 Bird Watching This short film won acclaim in several international film festivals.

1993 Hadashi no pikunikku aka Down the Drain This black comedy is an inversion of his later "Himitsu no hanazono" - a madcap series of misadvantures that chases our heroine through a less-than-friendly depiction of modern Japan.