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Yoichi Sai (1949-2022)

Alias:
Choi Yang-il
Yang-il Choi
Yohichi Sai
Yôichi Sai
Yōichi Sai
崔 洋一

Birthplace:
Nagano, Japan

Born:
July 6, 1949

Died:
November 27, 2022

Biography from TheMovieDB

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.   

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Additional information:

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Film Performances

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Film Production

Assistant Director:
1976  In the Realm of the Senses
1977  Kitamura Tokoku: My Winter Song
1978  The Killing Game
1978  The Most Dangerous Game
1979  No Grave for Us
1980  The Night of Martial Law
1980  不良少年

Director:
1976  In the Realm of the Senses
1977  Kitamura Tokoku: My Winter Song
1978  The Killing Game
1978  The Most Dangerous Game
1979  No Grave for Us
1980  The Night of Martial Law
1980  不良少年
1983  Dansen
1983  Sexual Crime
1983  The Mosquito on the Tenth Floor
1984  Someday, Someone Will Be Killed
1985  Let Him Rest in Peace
1986  Love Story
1987  The Lady in a Black Dress
1988  The Glorious Asuka Gang!
1989  Via Okinawa
1991  Burning Dog
1993  All Under the Moon
1995  Heisei Irresponsible Family: Tokyo de Luxe
1995  MARKS
1998  Dog Race
1999  The Pig's Retribution
2002  Doing Time
2004  Blood and Bones
2004  Quill: The Life of a Guide Dog
2007  Soo
2008  The Short Films Everyone started out as a child
2009  Kamui
2022  CLUB DEJA-VU ONE NIGHT SHOW 松田優作・メモリアル・ライブ
2022  優作について私が知っている二、三の事柄

Producer:
1976  Bastard on the Border
1976  In the Realm of the Senses
1977  Kitamura Tokoku: My Winter Song
1978  The Killing Game
1978  The Most Dangerous Game
1979  No Grave for Us
1980  The Night of Martial Law
1980  不良少年
1983  Dansen
1983  Sexual Crime
1983  The Mosquito on the Tenth Floor
1984  Someday, Someone Will Be Killed
1985  Let Him Rest in Peace
1986  Love Story
1987  The Lady in a Black Dress
1988  The Glorious Asuka Gang!
1989  Via Okinawa
1991  Burning Dog
1993  All Under the Moon
1995  Heisei Irresponsible Family: Tokyo de Luxe
1995  MARKS
1998  Dog Race
1999  The Pig's Retribution
2002  Doing Time
2004  Blood and Bones
2004  Quill: The Life of a Guide Dog
2007  Soo
2008  The Short Films Everyone started out as a child
2009  Kamui
2022  CLUB DEJA-VU ONE NIGHT SHOW 松田優作・メモリアル・ライブ
2022  優作について私が知っている二、三の事柄

Screenplay:
1976  Bastard on the Border
1976  In the Realm of the Senses
1977  Kitamura Tokoku: My Winter Song
1978  The Killing Game
1978  The Most Dangerous Game
1979  No Grave for Us
1980  The Night of Martial Law
1980  不良少年
1983  Dansen
1983  Sexual Crime
1983  The Mosquito on the Tenth Floor
1984  Someday, Someone Will Be Killed
1985  Let Him Rest in Peace
1986  Love Story
1987  The Lady in a Black Dress
1988  The Glorious Asuka Gang!
1989  Via Okinawa
1991  Burning Dog
1993  All Under the Moon
1995  Heisei Irresponsible Family: Tokyo de Luxe
1995  MARKS
1998  Dog Race
1999  The Pig's Retribution
2002  Doing Time
2004  Blood and Bones
2004  Quill: The Life of a Guide Dog
2007  Soo
2008  The Short Films Everyone started out as a child
2009  Kamui
2022  CLUB DEJA-VU ONE NIGHT SHOW 松田優作・メモリアル・ライブ
2022  優作について私が知っている二、三の事柄

Writer:
1976  Bastard on the Border
1976  In the Realm of the Senses
1977  Kitamura Tokoku: My Winter Song
1978  The Killing Game
1978  The Most Dangerous Game
1979  No Grave for Us
1980  The Night of Martial Law
1980  不良少年
1983  Dansen
1983  Sexual Crime
1983  The Mosquito on the Tenth Floor
1984  Someday, Someone Will Be Killed
1985  Let Him Rest in Peace
1986  Love Story
1987  The Lady in a Black Dress
1988  The Glorious Asuka Gang!
1989  Via Okinawa
1991  Burning Dog
1993  All Under the Moon
1995  Heisei Irresponsible Family: Tokyo de Luxe
1995  MARKS
1998  Dog Race
1999  The Pig's Retribution
2002  Doing Time
2004  Blood and Bones
2004  Quill: The Life of a Guide Dog
2007  Soo
2008  The Short Films Everyone started out as a child
2009  Kamui
2022  CLUB DEJA-VU ONE NIGHT SHOW 松田優作・メモリアル・ライブ
2022  優作について私が知っている二、三の事柄

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TV Production

Director:
1981  Pro Hunter

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Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).

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While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:

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  • Regarding those polls wherein "franchise" movies were submitted as one project until BFI's policy changed to regard them separately, I treated them as ties and renumbered the affected lists accordingly (e.g. the Godfather films).

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Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).

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Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.