Shiro Sasaki

Production

Shiro Sasaki

Born 1939-01-22 · Dairen, Japan [now Dalian, China]

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

Acting credits

Behind the camera

Mitsugetsu poster
6.5

Tetsuaki's struggling to write a novel while his mother fades; Mitsuko's engagement has been forced upon her unwillingly; the two individuals run away to share their grief.

Mitsugetsu

1984

Journey to the Shore poster
6.5

Mizuki's husband Yusuke has been missing for three years. He suddenly comes back home as a ghost and asks Mizuki to go on a trip with him. Their trip consists of visiting the people that helped Yusuke on his previous travel.

Journey to the Shore

2015

Mermaid Legend poster
6.4

A married couple of abalone divers must confront ruthless investors taking over their coastline.

Mermaid Legend

1984

The Woodsman and the Rain poster
6.1

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.

The Woodsman and the Rain

2012

20th Century Nostalgia poster
7.1

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.

20th Century Nostalgia

1997

Farewell to the Ark poster
7.1

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.

Farewell to the Ark

1984

Eighteen Years, to the Sea poster
6.7

Struggling with money, violence and social pressure, a couple of youngsters are drawn to dangerous games of death.

Eighteen Years, to the Sea

1979

The Family Game poster
6.9

A sendup of the stereotypical Japanese family: dad is a salaryman jerk, unable to relate to anyone; mom is a hopeless housewife; the older son is a moderate academic success; but the younger son is a rebellious goof-off for whom a tutor must be hired. The tutor proceeds to blow the entire family apart.

The Family Game

1983

Big Bang Love, Juvenile A poster
6.4

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.

Big Bang Love, Juvenile A

2006

Empire of Kids poster
5.0

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.

Empire of Kids

1981

Have You Seen the Barefoot God? poster
6.0

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.

Have You Seen the Barefoot God?

1986

Some Kinda Love poster
9.0

The life of a urban planning official and that of an old fellow student, now project developer, are turned upside down by a chance encounter with a beauty obsessed by UFOs.

Some Kinda Love

1996

A Tender Place poster
5.8

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.

A Tender Place

2001

Concent poster
4.9

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.

Concent

2002

Hear the Wind Sing poster
6.6

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.

Hear the Wind Sing

1981

Heart, Beating in the Dark poster
5.5

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.

Heart, Beating in the Dark

2005

At This Late Date, the Charleston poster
7.0

A young man gets thrown into detention after an episode of attempted rape. He soon meets several individuals claiming to be ministers of their own micronation…

At This Late Date, the Charleston

1981

Heart, Beating in the Dark poster
8.3

A boy and girl struggle to understand their place in 1980s Japan, retiring to copulate and probe each other for answers.

Heart, Beating in the Dark

1982

Recitation Travelogue - Masterpieces of Japan: Matasaburo the Wind Imp poster
5.5

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.

Recitation Travelogue - Masterpieces of Japan: Matasaburo the Wind Imp

2003