Sai Yoichi | IFFR

SAI Yoichi (1949, Nagano, Japan) is an auteur director and a major figure in modern Japanese film. He’s the current chairman of the Directors Guild of Japan, and he has 17 features and a short film to his credit. He’s had a long-term association with two of his finest contemporaries, Oshima Nagisa and Kitano Takeshi: he got his career break when Oshima invited him to work as his assistant on In the Realm of the Senses (1976). His early work earned him a reputation as a ‘hard-boiled’ director, but his films in no way resemble each other in tone, form or visual style. From 1993 on, Sai’s films are almost all explicitly about what it means to be a marginalized individual in Japan.

Filmography

Jukkai no mosukiito/Mosquito on the Tenth Floor (1983), Seiteki hanzai/Sex Crime (1983), Itsuka darekaga korosareru (1984), Tomo yo shizuka ni nemure (1985), Kuroi doresu no onna (1987), A Sign Days (1989), A-sain deizu/Via Okinawa (1989), Tsuki wa docchi ni dete iru/All Under the Moon (1993), Heisei musekinin-ikka: Tokyo de luxe (1995), Maakusu no yama/Marks (1995), Inu hashiru/Dog Race (1998), Buta no mukui/The Pig’s Retribution (1999), Keimusho no naka/Doing Time (2002), Kuiiru/Quill (2004), Chi to hone/Blood and Bones (2004), Soo/Art of Revenge (2007), Daikon/Contemporary Dining table (2008), Kamui Gaiden/Kamui (2009)