Kōji Shiraishi is a Japanese film director, screenwriter, and occasional actor. He is primarily known for directing Japanese horror films, including Noroi: The Curse (2005), Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman (2007), Occult, Teketeke, Cult (2013), and Sadako vs. Kayako (2016).
Director Kōji Shiraishi at the Horror and Fantasy Film Festival, Donostia-San Sebastián, 2016
Noroi: The Curse is a 2005 Japanese horror film directed and co-written by Kōji Shiraishi. It stars Jin Muraki as Masafumi Kobayashi, a paranormal researcher investigating a series of mysterious events for a documentary. The film employs a pseudo-documentary style of storytelling and utilizes found footage conventions, with the majority of the narrative being presented as if it were Kobayashi's documentary, made up of footage recorded by Kobayashi's cameraman. The film's cast also includes actress Marika Matsumoto, who plays a fictionalized version of herself, as well as Rio Kanno, Tomono Kuga, and Satoru Jitsunashi.
Theatrical release poster