is a Japanese

cinematographer The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the photographing or recording of a film, television production, music video or other live action piece. The cinematographer is the ch ...

. At the beginning of his career, he often worked with

pink film in its broadest sense includes almost any Japanese theatrical film that includes nudity (hence 'pink') or deals with sexual content. This encompasses everything from dramas to action thrillers and exploitation film features. The Western equiv ...

directors

Takahisa Zeze is a Japanese film director and screenwriter first known for his soft-core pornographic '' pink films'' of the 1990s. Along with fellow directors, Kazuhiro Sano, Toshiki Satō, and Hisayasu Sato, he is known as one of the . In recent years, he h ...

and

Hisayasu Satō is a Japanese exploitation film director. He has worked prolifically in the genre of ''pinku eiga'' films, which refers to Japanese films that prominently feature nudity or sexual content. His best-known works are the 1992 pink film ''The Bedro ...

. Saitō also worked with all nearly every director of the post-Heavenly King generation at Kokuei studio. Now working mostly in mainstream film, he still often teams up with Zeze.

Career

In his ''Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema'', Jasper Sharp writes that Saitō is probably the best cinematographer working in the pink film genre. He is most closely associated with the work of Takahisa Zeze, and Sharp credits Saitō with helping the director bridge the gap between pink and mainstream film. For his work in Zeze's , Saitō was given a special award for Best Cinematographer at the

Pink Grand Prix The or is an annual Japanese film award ceremony which recognizes excellence in the pink film genre. Referred to by Miho Toda as the "Academy Awards of the Pink Film", the ceremony attracts a diverse audience of industry personnel, film schola ...

. Sharp judges that Saitō's work in Zeze's is his "crowning achievement". In their review of Zeze's , cinematopics.com notes that the beautiful imagery captured by the cinematography of Zeze's "partner", Saitō, adds to the power of the work. '' Bashing'', a film Saitō photographed, was shown in the competition at the 2005

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

Awards

He won the award for best cinematography at the 2016

Mainichi Film Awards The are a series of annual film awards, sponsored by Mainichi Shinbun (毎日新聞), one of the largest newspaper companies in Japan, since 1946. It is the first film festival in Japan. History The origins of the contest date back to 1935, ...

for his work on '' 64: Part I'' and '' 64: Part II''.

Filmography

*''

Anarchy in Japansuke ''original title'' is a 1999 Japanese ''pink film'' directed by Takahisa Zeze. It won the Silver Prize at the Pink Grand Prix ceremony. Along with ''Office Lady Love Juice'', the film became something of a symbol of the rift between the older ' ...

'' (1999) *'' Bashing'' (2005) *''

Heaven's Story is a 2010 Japanese film directed by Takahisa Zeze. It was screened in the Main Programme of the Forum section at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize. It has also won the Séquences Prize at the Fantasia I ...

'' (2010) *'' 64: Part I'' (2016) *'' 64: Part II'' (2016) *''

The 8-Year Engagement is a 2017 Japanese film directed by Takahisa Zeze. It is based on an autobiographical book by Hisashi Nishozawa and Mai Nakahara. Plot Living in Okayama, Hisashi meets Mai for the first time at a restaurant party, but she lets him know she does ...

'' (2017)

References

External links

* * Living people Japanese cinematographers Year of birth missing (living people) {{Japan-film-bio-stub