Iida Joji

Date of Birth: 1959
Place of Birth: Suwa City, Nagano Prefecture, Japan
Date of Death:
Place of Death:
Also Known As:

Joji Iida, like a lot of aspiring directors, began his career with an 8mm camera which he used to make short films while still at high school - his 1981 amateur effort Kyusoku even nabbed him a prize at the Pia Film Festival.

He turned professional in the early 80s, working as an assistant director before landing his first directing gig in 1986 on the direct-to-video feature Cyclops, which was also the first of his many horror movies. More assistant directing followed before he returned to horror for his big-screen debut with Battle Heater: Kotatsu.

To hone his skills, Iida spent a short time in Los Angeles, meeting with effects technicians and leading directors like Francis Ford Coppola, before returning home in 1992 to take charge of a horror TV series, Night Head, which spun-off from two TV movies that Iida had already created, Yo nimo kimyouna monogatari: Joushiki sakaba (1992) and Yo nimo kimyouna monogatari: Trouble Cafe (1992) and would lead to a further TV movie, also titled Night Head (1994).

Although Hideo Nakata's 1998 big screen version of Koji Suzuki's best-selling novel Ringu is the one best known in the west, there was an earlier version made for Japanese television which Iida co-wrote with Taizo Soshigaya. It was a success in Japan but remains largely unseen elsewhere.

Iida had another crack at the Ringu mythology in 1998 when he was offered the chance to shoot a sequel to Nakata's adaptation which would be released to cinema's on the same day. Rasen, or Spiral as it's become known in the west, was a lot less successful than Ringu and for many years remained tantalisingly out of reach of most English speaking Ringu fans. A 2003 DVD release in the UK gave a wider audience the chance to at last see the "missing" Ringu sequel with subtitles.

But the failure of Rasen didn't stop Iida, who turned to his own popular horror novel, Another Heaven, for the source of his 2000 feature, which brought him much more success than Rasen had. In fact Another Heaven was so successful that Iida was given the chance to continue the story on television the same year in Another Heaven Eclipse.

Iida continues to work in the fantastic genre and although it was poorly received by critics his 2003 post-apocalyptic thriller Dragonhead was another hit.
KEVIN LYONS

* = television
+ = computer games

1986
Cyclops (script, director)

1989
Battle Heater: Kotatsu (script, director)
Battle Heater

1992
Yo nimo kimyouna monogatari: Joushiki sakaba (script, director) *

Yo nimo kimyouna monogatari: Trouble Cafe (script, director) *

1992 - 1994
Night Head (script, director) *

1993
Tokyo Babylon 1999 (script, director)

1994
Night Head (script, director) *

1995
Iida Joji Nightmare Interactive: Moon Cradle - Igyou no Hanayome (script) +

Ringu: Kanzen ban (script) *

1997
Genso Midnight (producer, script, director) *

1998
Rasen (script, director)
The Spiral - English language title

2000
Another Heaven (script, director)

Another Heaven Eclipse (script, director) *

Sci-Fi Harry (director) *

2003
Cold Sleep (director)

Dragonhead (director)

1981
Kyusoku (director)

1995
Akagi (director)

Sasho Taeko: Kikan no aisatsu (director) *

1997
Gift (script) *