Shiro Sasaki

Birth : 1939-01-22, Dairen, Japan [now Dalian, China]

Death : 2022-04-18

History

Shiro Sasaki was a Japanese film producer. Not to be confused with anime and music producer Shiro Sasaki (same kanji, born March 28, 1962).

Movies

Journey to the Shore
Producer
Mizuki’s husband Yusuke went missing for 3 years. He suddenly comes back home one day and asks Mizuki to go on a trip with him. Their trip consists of visiting the people that helped Yusuke on his previous travel. While travelling together, Misuki sees, touches and feels what Yusuke did for those 3 years.
The Woodsman and the Rain
Producer
A widowed lumberjack's life is turned upside down when a film crew shooting a zombie movie asks for his help and increasingly starts to rely on him.
Big Bang Love, Juvenile A
Producer
An unknown future. A boy confesses to the murder of another in an all-boy juvenile detention facility. More an exercise in style than storytelling, the story follows two detectives trying to uncover the case. Homosexual tension and explosive violence drives the story which delivers some weird and fascinating visuals.
Heart, Beating in the Dark
Producer
This new version of Nagasaki's Yami utsu shinzô (1982) is neither a remake nor a sequel. It is both those things, and at the same time it is also a documentary, a portrait of the consequences of passing time, and an occasionally very funny reflection on what the hell the point is of all this filmmaking business anyway. Shigeru Muroi and Takashi Naito, back then young hopefuls willing to take chances, now among the most established and recognisable actors in Japan, return to play the roles they assumed in the 1982 film, each of their characters having gone their own way. Alongside, another young couple (Honda and the ever-brilliant Eguchi) find themselves in the exact same situation as their older counterparts 25 years earlier. Their paths cross, an opportunity arises: for the elder two to redeem part of their own lives, for the younger couple to find a helping hand in their darkest hour.
Matasaburo the Wind Imp
Producer
Each year, at the start of the fall school year in September, Japan suffers from typhoons. That same month, in a small elementary school in a mountainous region, Saburô, a new red-haired pupil has just arrived with the wind. The children of the village thought they recognized in this strange boy who came from the city the spirit that they called “Matasaburô, the wind”. During two weeks of autumn, Matasaburô and the other children will do various experiments in nature.
Concent
Producer
In her brother's apartment where he died, Yuki finds a vacuum cleaner with its cord still hooked up to the outlet. She discovers that the circumstances surrounding her brother's supposed suicide are sketchy at best, yet no one has any answers. When she starts having hallucinations involving his ghost, however, she seeks some psychological help, eventually uncovering some things that she may have wished she'd left covered.
A Tender Place
Producer
Kasumi is in the midst of an affair with Ishiyama, one of her husband's clients. When Kasumi and her family visit Ishiyama's villa in Hokkaido, she plans to abandon them to be with Ishiyama. The next morning, her daughter Yuka disappears, which throws Kasumi's life into turmoil. Years later, Yuka remains missing, and Kasumi journeys back to Hokkaido with Utsumi, a terminally-ill former detective, and tries to follow any leads she can.
Nabbie's Love
Executive Producer
Nanako returns to her hometown on the tiny island of Aguni to meet her grandmother Nabbie. However, when Nanako's ferry arrives, it is also carrying Nabbie's former lover, who has returned to Aguni after a long absence.
20th Century Nostalgia
Producer
A young student believes that the spirit of an alien from another planet has gone back in time, taking over his body to infiltrate and study humanity in order to find the reasons why our civilization is doomed to future destruction. He replicates the spirit of another alien in a girl that he meets, and together they use their video cameras to document modern urban Japanese society.
Bound for the Fields, the Mountains, and the Seacoast
Executive Producer
During the fervently nationalist months leading up to World War II, a rebellious teenager is transferred to a new primary school in a small Inland Sea town. He vies with the school’s reigning bully, who takes a romantic interest in his older stepsister. When they learn she’s going to be sold to a brothel to pay off her father’s debts, they form an uneasy alliance to free her.
Have You Seen the Barefoot God?
Producer
2 almost inseparable friends. The talented painter recognized by all decided to leave the town where they live and become an artist and the shy poet who only sees his future in his mother's business.
Farewell to the Ark
Producer
A surreal, isolated village sees its inhabitants gradually leave behind their mutual traditions and superstitions as they leave for the city. Among them are two cousins who love each other and who get into a quarrel with other villagers.
The Crazy Family
Executive Producer
The Kobayashi family finally get the chance to move out of their tiny, cramped Tokyo apartment in favour of the suburban house of their dreams. But all is not well: the house is infested by termites and the family starts cracking up: Son Masaki is studying so obsessively for his exams that he's losing his mind; daughter Erika is oblivious of all but her forthcoming record company audition, grandfather Yasukuni starts getting World War II flashbacks and father Katsuhiko is so worried about his family's "sickness" that he thinks can only be cured by group suicide.
Mermaid Legend
Producer
After a woman is framed for the murder of her fisherman husband, she seeks out a bloody revenge on the corrupt businessmen responsible.
Tattoo
Executive Producer
An ardent culture-vulture youth, previously charged for the murder of a woman when he was young, plans to hold hostage a local bank.
After That
Film director Shunichi Nagasaki reflects on a near-fatal motorcycle accident that occurred while shooting his commercial feature debut The Lonely Hearts Club Band in September.
Heart, Beating in the Dark
Producer
A boy and girl struggle to understand their place in 1980s Japan, retiring to copulate and probe each other for answers.
近頃なぜかチャールストン
Producer
A young man gets thrown into detention after an episode of sexual assault; he soon meets several impostors in the same situation.
Hear the Wind Sing
Producer
A student travels back to Kobe for the summer. Once there, he meets his friend Rat, hangs on the usual place, listening to the Beach Boys and meets a mysterious twin girl.
Empire of Kids
Producer
Following a stint in reform school, Ryu (Shinsuke Shimada) returns to his home, the Minami area of Osaka, accompanied by his new friend Ko (Takeshi Masu). He's greeted by his friends, Chabo (Ryusuke Matsumoto) and Ken (Bang-ho Cho). They seek to forge their own path through a multitude of rival gangs in Kita and Minami, including the Hokushin Alliance, backed by the yakuza, the Hope Association, and various other minor factions, including Zainichi Korean groups. What follows is a wild, fast-paced story of violence, revenge, betrayal, and discrimination, that never loses its sense of humor.
Before Spring
Executive Producer
Out of the blue, a bourgeois family on the Sea of Japan finds an unconscious woman on the beach and decides to let her board.
Eighteen Years, to the Sea
Producer
Kei and Atsuo were both enrolled in summer school. Kei was an honor student, and Atsuo was the polar opposite - but opposites attract. After school, the two head to the beach, where they find another student from their school competing against a local gang member, to see who is able to hold his breath longer under water. Overwhelmed by the excitement, Kei and Atsuo decide to try themselves.