| An
up and coming director, who worked as an assistant
director for many years before helming his own
films at the start of the new century. Masaaki
Tezuka graduated from the Nihon University of
Art in 1977, and quickly started a career in TV
movies. However, the director's real interest
was in the theatrical arena, which he entered
in 1979 as an assistant director on Shusei Kotani's
White Love. In 1980, Tezuka went on to
assistant direct on two more films, one was Kinji
Fukasaku box office hit Virus
and the other was Kon Ichikawa's Koto: The
Ancient City. For a period of time, Tezuka
worked almost exclusively on Ichikawa's movies,
including The Burmese Harp in 1985 and
Princess
from the Moon in 1987. At the end of
the 1980's, Tezuka took on an assistant director
role on the critically acclaimed Buddies
(1989), which went on to win several Japanese
Academy Awards. However, the director's true calling
would be realized four years later, when he worked
on the 1993 production Godzilla
vs. Mechagodzilla 2 with Takao
Okawara. Following the end of the Heisei Godzilla
series, Tezuka aided on the last two Rebirth of
Mothra films, before his big break finally came
in 2000, after more than two decades of assistant
directing. For the second film in the Millennium
series of Godzilla films, Toho picked Tezuka to
helm the project, which was titled Godzilla
vs. Megaguirus (2000). Unfortunately,
the movie was a huge disappointment at the box
office, as Toho contemplated ending the new series
prematurely following Shusuke
Kaneko's effort the following year. Undiscouraged,
Tezuka signed on for the 2001 Godzilla film as
a second unit special effects director. Unforeseen
by Toho, Kaneko's Godzilla,
Mothra & King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out
Attack was a huge hit at the box office,
and breathed renewed life into the series, as
Toho went along with another production in 2002,
this time turning back to Tezuka to direct. Called
Godzilla
Against Mechagodzilla, the 2002 entry
marked another hit at the box office, as Toho
accepted the director's proposal to helm a follow
up, called Godzilla:
Tokyo S.O.S. (2003), which he would also
write. Sadly, the film did very poorly at the
box office, although Tezuka had already situated
himself as a successful special effects film director
by that time, which landed him the job of director
on Kadokawa's big budget remake of G.I.
Samurai (1979) called Samurai
Commando: Mission 1549 (2005).
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