Iwao Saitô

Birth : , Aomori Prefecture, Japan

History

Art director. Born 1958 in Aomori Prefecture, Japan. After graduating from Doshisha University in 1982, he joined Nikkatsu in April of that same year. He went on to study under the art director Takeo Kimura.

Movies

Kingdom
Production Design
Set in Qin Dynasty during the warring states period in ancient China. Shin was a war orphan. He has a dream of becoming a great general Shin has a fateful encounter with young King Eisei. King Eisei aims to unify all of China.
Library Wars: Book Of Memories
Art Direction
Iku (Nana Eikura) joined the Library Defense Force after a member from that team retrieved an important book that was targeted for censorship. She is assigned to work under Atsushi’s (Junichi Okada) team. She endures Atsushi's harsh treatment and looks for the member who retrieved her book. She also finds herself becoming attracted to Atsushi. Iku meets female high school student Marie (Tao Tsuchiya) at the library. Maries has a hearing disability. She is also a childhood friend of Mikihisa (Kei Tanaka). Iku senses Marie’s strong feelings for Mikihisa. Asako (Chiaki Kuriyama) works as a clerk for the Library Task Force. She has frequent meetings with curator Shuji (Aoi Nakamura). This creates complicated feelings for Hikaru (Sota Fukushi). One day, Mikihisa is arrested because of a book he recommended to Marie. Official reason given is because the book is unsuitable for disabled people. The members of the Library Task Force are angered by Mikihisa's arrest.
All-Round Appraiser Q: The Eyes of Mona Lisa
Production Design
In this adaptation of the popular eponymous mystery novel by Keisuke Matsuoka, Paris provides the gorgeous backdrop for a grand intrigue involving the world’s most iconic artistic treasure: the Mona Lisa. Minds will be blown, puzzles will be solved, but will a 500-year-old curse be removed?
Self-Bondage: All Tied Up with My Own Rope
Art Direction
Yuria discovered the pleasure of tying herself up in her university days, and resumes the pursuit in order to relieve work stress. She starts a blog to describe the sensation of rope on her skin, and becomes acquainted with a cross-dressing bondage aficionado. Eventually, she grows bolder in practicing her hobby, and begins to wear bindings under her suit while at work.
Sand Chronicles
Production Design
A young girl named Ann moves with her mother to her mother's hometown after her parents go through a divorce. There, Ann meets her first love Daigo Kitamura. Daigo helps her get used to life in the country. Ann even gets through her mother's suicide.
Dream Cruise
Production Design
Absolutely terrified of the sea, an American lawyer reluctantly goes on an ocean cruise to be near the wife of a client, with no idea of the grim situation that awaits them all.
The Grudge 2
Production Design
A young woman encounters a malevolent supernatural force while searching for her missing sister in Tokyo, a mean high school prank goes horribly wrong, and strange things begin happening in a Chicago apartment building.
9/10
Production Design
Nine former members of a high school baseball team reunite for the first time in seven years, invited to meet again by an unknown figure. The friends begin to reminisce about times gone by, but soon realize that there are discrepancies among their memories. When they decide to open an old time capsule to dig up the truth, they find that the box they buried now has ten keyholes instead of nine; a mystery that only a tenth person could have the answer to.
First Love
Production Design
In the chaotic days of the 1960s, Misuzu, a lonely high school girl from a troubled family, finds sanctuary with her nihilistic brother, Ryo, and his friends. They pass their days hanging around a shadowy jazz cafe bar, indulging themselves in a life of sex, drugs and alcohol.
Inferno
Production Design
Satomi is a research student who travels to northern Japan seeking reported olden Christian relics. On the island of Hokkaido and in a village, odd deeds are occurring. As such, she bands together with another researcher and locals to uncover the truth and understand the infernal happenings of which there are many.
Sayonara Color
Art Direction
Shohei works as a doctor in a seaside hospital. One day, a new patient is admitted to the hospital with ovarian cancer. Shohei is surprised to recognize Michiko, his first love from high school. Shohei has been leading a dissolute bachelor life, paying for the company of high school girls and dating an older woman who works in a local bar, but in reality, for the last twenty years, he has not forgotten Michiko. Unfortunately though, Michiko doesn't remember him at all. Shohei becomes more and more persistent in his attempts to get her to recall their past. At first she is annoyed by his overtures, but gradually warms to the doctor. Under Shohei's kind and patient care, Michiko's condition improves and her cancer becomes operable. The operation is a success, but now Shohei himself learns that he has terminal cancer.
The Grudge
Production Design
An American nurse living and working in Tokyo is exposed to a mysterious supernatural curse, one that locks a person in a powerful rage before claiming their life and spreading to another victim.
Premonition
Production Design
While stopped at a roadside phone booth for transmitting his work through Internet to the university, Professor Hideki Satomi finds a scrap of newspaper with the picture of his five year old daughter Nana in the obituary. He sees his wife Ayaka trying to release their daughter from the seatbelt, when a truck hits his car killing Nana. Three years later, Hideki is divorced from Ayaka, who is researching paranormal people who claim to have read an evil newspaper anticipating the future. Still trying to believe in Hideki, she finds that there are people cursed to foresee the future but without the power to save the victims. When Hideki changes the future saving Ayaka, he becomes trapped in hell and he has to make a choice for his own destiny.
Josee, the Tiger and the Fish
Art Direction
Tsuneo is a university student working part-time in a mah-jong parlour. Lately the customers have been talking about an old lady who pushes a baby carriage through the streets. They say she is carrying something for a crime syndicate, and they wonder what it is she has in the carriage Money? Drugs? One day, the owner of the mah-jong parlour sends Tsuneo out to walk his dog. A baby carriage comes rolling down a hill and crashes into a guard rail. The old lady asks him to look into the carriage, where he finds a young woman clutching a knife. This is how Tsuneo first meets the girl who calls herself Josee.
To the Bracken Fields
Art Direction
A poor village in the Tohoku area has a law that states when a resident becomes sixty years old, they must move to the place called Warabino, far away from home.
Love Song
Production Design
In 1985 Hokkaido, Akiko gets close to a record store clerk after he lends her his copy of a Yutaka Ozaki album.
Quartet for Two
Art Direction
Shotaro and Minako are arguing. Minako has confessed her infidelity to her husband and informs him of her intention to leave him. She has ceased to enjoy living with a submissive husband. Minako, who works for a construction company, loves her job and is progressing in her successful career, while her husband eagerly takes care of the house and the kids. He buys groceries, he cooks, he does the laundry – constantly. The couple’s arguing intensifies until Minaka files for divorce. Their older daughter Mari isn’t that upset by her parent’s problems as she’s more interested in the piano piece she’s got to play with her mother at a concert organised by her music school; admittedly, she’s also rather interested in her music teacher. But her younger brother Toru feels betrayed by his mother and can’t manage to reconcile himself to his father’s role as a housewife. A partial reconciliation occurs at Minako and Mari’s concert, where their entrance on stage is met with loud applause.
Another Heaven
Production Design
A pair of hard-boiled Tokyo cops are investigating a gruesome murder: after killing the victim, the murderer cut his skull open and cooked his brain in a stew. As they try to track down the killer, they discover that, quite literally, everybody is a suspect. Will they bring the terror to an end, or will they become part of it themselves?
Ring
Production Design
A mysterious video has been linked to a number of deaths, and when an inquisitive journalist finds the tape and views it herself, she sets in motion a chain of events that puts her own life in danger.
Don't Look Up
Production Design
On the set of a dark war time drama at an old movie studio, a young director, Toshio Murai, is trying to complete his debut film. The two starring actresses, Hitomi Kurokawa and Saori Murakami, play sisters in his film. Murai has a crush on Hitomi, the seasoned leading actress, and keeps a photo of her by his bed. The younger and less experienced actress, Saori, is annoying and likes to have recess on the set. The production of the movie is consistently interrupted by strange occurrences and the cast and crew begin to get spooked.
119
Art Direction
In Harari-cho, a small and quiet bayside town by the sea, the firemen have not seen a fire for nearly twenty years. Each day passes eventlessly... until one day. The monotony of their daily lives is interrupted by the appearance of a beautiful female college student, Momoko, who comes to visit her aunt. After catching a glimpse of Momoko, both Tatsuya and Nobuyuki can't stop thinking about her. Since then, the small town is not so quiet anymore…
Private Lessons II
Production Design
An insecure young Asian man meets an interesting sensual European woman who teaches him the secrets of love and life.
Shimanto River
Art Direction
A young boy, Atsu, grows up along the banks of the Shimanto River in rural southern Shikoku. He comes to grips with the unfairness of life and the emotional pain involved in the loss of innocence. The film is based on an autobiographical novel written by Kyuzo Sasayama.
Nowhere Man
Art Direction
Sukezo, a farmer manga comic artist, takes up the art rock business by setting up a shop in a shed by the river. He tries hard to be successful, but business does not go well and the family becomes progressively poorer.
Natsu no pēji
Art Direction
Three young country boys are beginning to drift apart as friends. In the summer, they set off to have an adventure in the mountains.
No Life King
Art Direction
Via the New York Times: "The solemn, intent faces of the Japanese schoolboys playing video games in Jun Ichikawa's "No Life King" bespeak a new type of modern horror. Addicted to their favorite new game (from which the film takes its title), these children have become seriously estranged from the real world. The film's constant emphasis is on the ways in which this has been allowed to happen, and on how emblematic it is of larger attitudes in a technological society. When a young boy trying to converse with his mother must compete with a home computer for her attention, it's not hard to see why the boy has retreated into his own computer-dominated world."
Freeway Speedway
Art Direction
Street racers challenge each other to exceed the current speed record held by the F1 racer. However, in order to break the record of the Megalopolis Express Freeway, you need to have "luck" in addition to a high-powered street-machine and driving technique. And you must be able to conquer the "Devil’s Curve". Racers bet their dreams and their lives against one another in a dangerous game of speed.
Dogra Magra
Art Direction
A young man kills his bride on the day of his marriage and goes insane. He wakes up in an asylum with no memory, left in the hands of two mysterious doctors who relate his condition with his biological identity.
Bed Partner
Art Direction
Bu-ra-i no onna
Art Direction
Story of 4 men and women in Okinawa.
Neko no youni
Art Direction
Saejima Nao: Akume kinenbi
Art Direction
A beautiful aspiring photographer visits Okinawa with her boyfriend for a passionate weekend getaway. Things get a little dangerous when she gets caught snooping around a large house by another couple...
Flower and Snake 5: Rope Magic
Art Direction
The story of the gambler,who is unable to pay his loan.His wife and daughter are kidnapped and subjected to many days of torture and sexual degradation.
Hell in a Bottle
Art Direction
After the death of their father, a brother and his sister return to their family home on a secluded island. They are accompanied by the brother's girlfriend. Problems arise when it becomes obvious that the two siblings have carnal desires for each other as well.
Mandaraya no Ryôta
Art Direction
Live-action adaptation of Jun Hatanaka's manga "Mandaraya no Ryota".
Hit Woman
Art Direction
Gritty softcore thriller about a female assassin brutally victimized in her past and her target, who turns out to be her long lost lover. Can they escape their world of violence before her handler, a sadistic yakuza, catches up with them?
Nurse Girl Dorm: Sticky Fingers
Art Direction
A group of sexy young nurses who work at a local hospital live in dormitory housing provided by the hospital. The hospital also provides the dorm's supervisor, a strict older nurse who runs the dorm with an iron fist. The nurses have to find "creative" ways to sneak their boyfriends into their rooms for some steamy sex sessions
Oniroku Dan: Best of SM
Art Direction
Selected scenes from Roman Porno titles are put into the context of a story by adding book-end sequences that turn the film clips into something more than the average compilation film.
Koichiro Uno's Wet and Swinging
Art Direction
A parody of Aim for the Ace! (エースを狙え Ace wo nerae!?), a tennis manga. Similar characters to that in the manga include "Madam Butterfly", a rich snob of a professional tennis player, and Hiromi, her suffering opponent.
Rorikon hausu: Oshimeri Junko
Art Direction
Nikkatsu Roman Porno
Onsen Geisha: Yubune de Ippatsu
Art Direction
Nikkatsu Roman Porno