GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka 1999
Tohru Fujisawa's popular manga about a wildly irreverent high school teacher comes to the screen in this live-action comedy drama. Eikichi Onizuka (Takashi Sorimachi), who barely earned his teaching degree at a second-rate college, rolls into Horobonai, a small rural town in Northern Japan on his motorcycle to take a job as a substitute instructor. Ever since the closing of the local theme park, Horobonai has fallen into an economic tailspin, and many of the town's teenagers have sunk into a deep depression. Onizuka, however, isn't the sort of person who respects the town's newly somber personality; willing to mouth off to both his students and his superiors, Onizuka isn't much of a teacher, but he knows how to get people interested, and soon his brash style (and willingness to kick a few butts) brings new life to Horobonai.
- Released: 1999-12-18
- Runtime: 108 minutes
- Genre: Comedy, Drama
- Stars: Takashi Sorimachi, Rena Tanaka, Norika Fujiwara, Hideyuki Kasahara, Nanako Matsushima
- Director: Masayuki Suzuki, Takayuki Hattori, Mitsuru Tanabe, Tôru Fujisawa
