Takashi Miike is a prolific Japanese director and screenwriter who's been making films since 1991—over a hundred of them across theatrical releases, video, and television. He's known for bouncing between wildly different genres, sometimes within the same year: you might get a brutal, surreal horror film one moment and a wholesome family movie the next. That genre-hopping, combined with his willingness to go genuinely extreme with violence and disturbing imagery, has made him a controversial figure in Japanese cinema. Critics have regularly called him out for the graphic content in his work, though that same willingness to push boundaries is exactly what his fans love about him.

His most famous films include Audition, Ichi the Killer, Gozu, and One Missed Call—all of which showcase his taste for the bizarre and unsettling. He's also known for the Dead or Alive trilogy and a string of remakes, including Graveyard of Honor, Hara-kiri, and 13 Assassins, which proved he could reinvent classic material while keeping his own distinctive style.