Yoichi Sai

Birthday: 1949-07-06
Deathday: 2022-11-27
Birthplace: Nagano, Japan
Gender: Male
Owned By: Unowned

Yoichi Sai (born 6 July 1949 in Nagano Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese film director. His mother is Japanese, His father is zainichi Korean.

His 2004 film Chi to hone won four Japanese Academy Awards, including two for Sai himself, for Best Director and Best Screenplay. He had previously received two nominations in the same categories for Tsuki wa dotchi ni dete iru. In 1999 he shot Buta no mukui (The Pig's Retribution), a film set in the lavish natural scenery of Okinawa, inspired by the 1996 Akutagawa Prize-winning eponymous novel by Eiki Matayoshi. The film won the Don Quixote prize at Locarno International Film Festival in 1999.

He won the award for Best Screenplay at the 11th Yokohama Film Festival for A Sign Days.

As an actor, he appeared in Nagisa Oshima's 1999 film Taboo. He is the current president of the Directors Guild of Japan.   

Credits

Year Title Character
2006-03-11 Route 225
2003-01-01 In the Realm of the Senses: Recalling the Film Interviewee
1999-12-18 Taboo Isami Kondo
1995-03-18 The Stairway to the Distant Past Chief of Police
1994-10-15 N45゜ Bearded man
1993-11-06 All Under the Moon Section Chief