Kōichi Saitō
Birth : 1929-02-03, Hachioji, Tokyo, Japan
Death : 2009-11-28
History
Kōichi Saitō (斎藤 耕一 Saitō Kōichi, 3 February 1929 – 28 November 2009) was a Japanese film director and photographer. Born in Tokyo, Saitō started studying at Rikkyo University but ended up graduating from the Tokyo College of Photography (currently Tokyo Polytechnic University). He was initially a movie stills photographer at Nikkatsu before launching his own production company, Saito Productions, and directing his first film, Tsubuyaki no Jō, "a low-budget, independent film with a visual flair that earned comparisons with Claude Lelouch and with Richard Lester’s Beatles films, including A Hard Day’s Night". Some of his first films were youth movies featuring Group Sounds music. He came to prominence in the early 1970s with a series of movies about young people escaping to or searching for their identity in the countryside. He won the best director award at the 1972 Mainichi Film Awards. His Tsugaru jongarabushi was selected the best film of 1973 in the Kinema Junpo poll of critics. Saitō continued directing into his seventies and also made some documentaries. He was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun (4th Class, Gold Rays with Rosette) in 2000.
Writer
A couple flees Tokyo, their family and friends. The girlfriend is a member of a rock band. She is dating the man, but friends and family are against it compelling her to move away. They stay at an inn in an area in which they know no one. One inn employee finds out about their dilemma and introduces them to a local farmer who offers them work and a home.
Director
A couple flees Tokyo, their family and friends. The girlfriend is a member of a rock band. She is dating the man, but friends and family are against it compelling her to move away. They stay at an inn in an area in which they know no one. One inn employee finds out about their dilemma and introduces them to a local farmer who offers them work and a home.
Writer
Director
Director
Director
In 1940, Kubota Shoten, which has been in business for generations, goes bankrupt due to the debauched lifestyle of its president, Kunimitsu Kubota. Subsequently, Kunimitsu moves back to his hometown and his children are sent to live with other relatives.
Director
Director
Director
Adaptation of a 1956 novel by Yukio Mishima.
Writer
Obayashi’s take on the famous Kosuke Kindaichi series, made popular partly thanks to the numerous movie-adaptions by Kon Ichikawa, the most known being The Inugami Family. Kosuke Kindaichi is the most famous detective in Japan. Kindaichi gets a new case to figure out who has beheaded a valuable statue and made off with its head.
Screenplay
A wealthy Japanese sugar factory manager in Hawaii finds his wife sinking into depression and madness.
Novel
A wealthy Japanese sugar factory manager in Hawaii finds his wife sinking into depression and madness.
Director
A wealthy Japanese sugar factory manager in Hawaii finds his wife sinking into depression and madness.
Director
Romance film
Director
Director
A young doctor starts working at a mental hospital in the Yokohama region and falls in love with one of the patients there.
Director
Based on the life of artist Yumeji Takehisa
Screenplay
Ken's older sister Yoko, who has raised Ken like a mother, decides to move to Brazil with an older man.
Director
Ken's older sister Yoko, who has raised Ken like a mother, decides to move to Brazil with an older man.
Director
The Homeless is a picaresque tale in the truest sense of the word. Two inmates are simultaneously released from jail, but go their separate ways, only to cross paths again in the nearest brothel. There they make the acquaintance of a would-be prostitute with a childlike mind and serious problems with the yakuza. They help her escape from the mob-infested cathouse and decide to guide her on her quest for sunken contraband somewhere off the coast, whose location only she knows, but which the yakuza are very eager to learn about. It is a remake of the French film The Last Adventure (1967).
Writer
A young girl is being asked about a man with whom she was keeping company, as her grandmother plays a lament on a shamisen. Then the focus changes to a couple arriving from Tokyo - the woman returning to her home, the man an escapee from the yakuza. The man doesn't seem to mind when the woman sells her favours to tourists at the local bar, just as she seems to take his attentions to Yuki, a blind girl, with equanimity.
Director
A young girl is being asked about a man with whom she was keeping company, as her grandmother plays a lament on a shamisen. Then the focus changes to a couple arriving from Tokyo - the woman returning to her home, the man an escapee from the yakuza. The man doesn't seem to mind when the woman sells her favours to tourists at the local bar, just as she seems to take his attentions to Yuki, a blind girl, with equanimity.
Director
A man survives a double suicide attempt, while his girlfriend does not.
Director
Director
Bored with her school life, a 16-year-old student leaves home to take a trip along the Pacific Ocean. After meeting with a theatre group she falls sick and is rescued by a fisherman with who she shares her life with.
Director
The brief love story of an attentive young man and a beautiful woman who meet, fall in love and part during the course of a train ride.
Screenplay
Director
Screenplay
Based on Shinichi Mori song
Director
Based on Shinichi Mori song
Director
Based on the song by Mari Henmi
Director
It was five years ago when Minako spent a night with Sozo, younger brother of her ex-husband. She now lives in a local town with a rich old man who owns a dry goods store. Minako travels to Tokyo on business every three months, during which time she continues to meet Sozo, who has married the daughter of his respected teacher.
Original Story
Tadao Konno (Yujiro Ishihara) had been staying in Canada for 5 years since his girlfriend's death. She was killed for Gang's boss, Shiraishi. Now Tadao returned from Canada and Gang member wonder if he will do revenge for her death…
Director
Based on Shinichi Mori song
Director
A young composer falls in love with the beautiful daughter of a wealthy company president and flies to Paris when he learns she is studying music there. But, when he finally wins her after many difficulties, he somehow feels empty, because his spirit has always been aroused against barriers before him.
Screenplay
A young composer falls in love with the beautiful daughter of a wealthy company president and flies to Paris when he learns she is studying music there. But, when he finally wins her after many difficulties, he somehow feels empty, because his spirit has always been aroused against barriers before him.
Director
Screenplay
Youth drama
Director
Youth drama
Music
Nobuko and five male friends graduate from a high school, promising to remain friends forever. One year later, Nobuko is working as a mediocre actress for TV commercials, and the five men are wearing beards and have formed a psychedelic rock band. One day, Nobuko meets Jun, who draws cartoons based on his experiences.
Screenplay
Nobuko and five male friends graduate from a high school, promising to remain friends forever. One year later, Nobuko is working as a mediocre actress for TV commercials, and the five men are wearing beards and have formed a psychedelic rock band. One day, Nobuko meets Jun, who draws cartoons based on his experiences.
Director
Nobuko and five male friends graduate from a high school, promising to remain friends forever. One year later, Nobuko is working as a mediocre actress for TV commercials, and the five men are wearing beards and have formed a psychedelic rock band. One day, Nobuko meets Jun, who draws cartoons based on his experiences.
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Director
Director of Photography
Village Singers film
Director
Village Singers film
Screenplay
Melodrama about the life of an unfortunate composer of the Meiji era, Rentaro Taki, who became known only after his death.
Director of Photography
Writer
Director
Writer
Yuka is a “good-time girl” from Yokohama who is persuaded by her papa to sleep with a foreign business executive so that he can close an important deal. Nakahira presents a shrewdly observed portrait of a modern, sexually assertive woman—an unsettling character for a changing but still patriarchal society.
Writer
A Tokyo student transfers to a rural school and finds it difficult to adjust himself to its customs and traditions. One of the customs is the wearing of an old school cap by a senior. It is a symbol of courage and bravery and is handed down to a new senior each year.
Original Story
A bus making its precarious way across a winding mountain road picks up some unwelcome passengers.
