Katasumi and 4444444444

Katasumi In a Corner and 4444444444 Ten Fours are two 1998 short Japanese horror films both directed by Takashi Shimizu, serving as prequels to the Juon series.

When Kurosawa learned that a producer he knew had just commissioned a feature length horror film for Kansai Telecasting Corporation, he recommended Shimizu for the job of directing one or more sections of the film. To complete this task, Shimizu wrote several scripts, each roughly thirty minutes in length, only to be asked to make two brief three minute segments Katasumi and 4444444444, as the television movie was intended to be an anthology of short films. After being edited together, the collection of four shorts one of which was helmed by Kurosawa was titled Gakk no kaidan G, which roughly translates to School Ghost Story G G supposedly standing for Great. It was first broadcast on Kansai TV on September 27, 1998, and ran for around 70 minutes, meaning that Shimizu contributed to just underpercent of the finished product.While it is often claimed that the subsequent feature length video films Juon The Curse and Juon The Curseare remakes of Katasumi and 4444444444, the two segments are actually the foundations of Juon, according to Shimizu, and act almost like the true prequel of the story. Katasumi, in particular, is notable for marking the first appearance of actress Takako Fuji at this point anonymous as Kayako Saeki, a role that she would reprise for every Juon production thereafter, up to The Grudge 2. ........

Source: Wikipedia