Hisayasu Satō

Directing

Hisayasu Satō

Born

1959-08-15 (67)

Place of birth

Shizuoka, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan

Known for

Directing

Credits

67 titles

Hisayasu Sato is a Japanese exploitation film director. He has worked prolifically in the pinku eiga genre. He is known for his "sledgehammer" filmmaking style, and using his exploitation career to tackle serious subjects like obsession, alienation, perversion and voyeurism. He is famous for his "guerilla shooting technique" in which his actors appear on location in public and incorporate unknowing bystanders into the film. Hisayasu Sato’s often violent but highly visual works utilised a multitude of multimedia devices to reflect upon issues such as the power of the gaze, the dehumanising effects of technology and the loss of the individual’s sense of “self” that accompanied Japan’s period o…

Known for

Love Letter in the Sand poster
5.8

During a month of unusually heavy rain in Tokyo, a mystery assailant has been brutally assaulting and killing people with a metal bat. When a handsome young man with amnesia is found outside an area hospital, the nurse who discovered him begins to suspect that he may in fact be the assailant. But her own strange erotic fixations with him, and the questionable involvement of the doctor tasked with the amnesia victim, lead them all down an increasingly twisted path of deeply-rooted trauma and violence.

Love Letter in the Sand

1988

Save the Last Dance for Me poster
3.3

The true story of a pair of college students who attempted a double suicide to end their doomed romance becomes fare for legendary pinku-eiga director Hisayasu Sato in this feature. Fatalistic and sad, this is one of the more depressing Japanese softcore films, and Sato makes it even worse by including footage from the lovers’ actual 8 mm experimental film throughout the story

Save the Last Dance for Me

1986

Splatter: Naked Blood poster
5.8

A scientist taints his mother's scientific experiment with his own drug that transforms pain into a pleasurable experience. Unfortunately for the three women involved in the experiment, the drug works a little bit too well.

Splatter: Naked Blood

1996

Rampo Noir poster
5.7

An anthology film consisting of four segments based on literary works by Edogawa Ranpo.

Rampo Noir

2005

OL renzoku rape: Kyonyû musaboru poster
4.0

Following cosmetic surgery to enhance her breasts, an office worker is raped. The rapist's son, after setting his distinctly Oedipal gaze on his father's busty victim, locates her and they begin an ill-fated sadomasochistic affair that leads to a bloody killing spree.

OL renzoku rape: Kyonyû musaboru

1990

Hanra honban: Joshidaisei bôkô-hen poster
5.0

The tale of an alienated young guy eager to discover a way to spend his bills. Financial relief shows up in the form of unknown e-mails directing him to rape women for money, capturing the crimes as evidence of his work. Sordid as his brand new job may be, the aspiring rapist seems to have solved his financial woes, until a feisty young paranormal uses the girl extrasensory powers to resolve the case.

Hanra honban: Joshidaisei bôkô-hen

1990

Film credits

2020s · 9 titles

Revenge in S&M: An Interview with Hisayasu Sato poster
NR

An interview with Hisayasu Satô about "Turtle Vision" (bonus feature on the "The Films of Hisayasu Satô: Volume #3" Bluray set released by Vinegar Syndrome).

Revenge in S&M: An Interview with Hisayasu Sato

2026

Walking in Circles: Shinjuku with Hisayasu Satô: Part 1 poster
NR

Hisayasu Satô revisits the locations in Shinjuku where he shot Lustmord (Pleasure Kill), Re-Wind (Celluloid Nightmare), and Love Letter in the Sand (Pervert Ward: Torturing the White Uniform). From the Volume 1 set by Vinegar Syndrome.

Walking in Circles: Shinjuku with Hisayasu Satô: Part 1

2025

I'm Being Watched: An Interview with Hisayasu Sato poster
NR

An interview with director Hisayasu Satô about "An Aria on Gazes" (bonus feature on the "An Aria on Gazes" Bluray released by Vinegar Syndrome).

I'm Being Watched: An Interview with Hisayasu Sato

2026

Escape 3: An Interview with Hisayasu Sato poster
NR

An interview with Hisayasu Sato about Rafureshia (bonus feature on the "The Films of Hisayasu Satô: Volume #3" Bluray set released by Vinegar Syndrome).

Escape 3: An Interview with Hisayasu Sato

2026

Walking in Circles: Shinjuku with Hisayasu Satô: Part 2 poster
NR

Hisayasu Satô revisits the locations in Shinjuku where he shot "An Aria on Gazes" and "Love - Zero = Infinity" (bonus feature on the "Love-Zero=Infinity" Bluray released by Vinegar Syndrome).

Walking in Circles: Shinjuku with Hisayasu Satô: Part 2

2026

Unidentified Followed Objects (UFOs): An Interview with Hisayasu Sato poster
NR

"Unidentified Followed Objects (UFOs)": an interview with director Hisayasu Satô about "Love-Zero=Infinity" (bonus feature on the "Love-Zero=Infinity" Bluray released by Vinegar Syndrome).

Unidentified Followed Objects (UFOs): An Interview with Hisayasu Sato

2026

Lost in the Bedroom: An interview with Kyôko Nakamura poster
NR

An interview with actress Kyôko Nakamura about her role in "An Aria on Gazes" (bonus feature on the "An Aria on Gazes" Bluray released by Vinegar Syndrome).

Lost in the Bedroom: An interview with Kyôko Nakamura

2026

Lord, Have Mercy: An Interview With Hisayasu Sato poster
NR

An interview with director Hisayasu Satô about "Kyrie Eleison" (bonus feature on the "The Films of Hisayasu Satô: Volume #3" Bluray set released by Vinegar Syndrome).

Lord, Have Mercy: An Interview With Hisayasu Sato

2026

Walking in Circles: Shinjuku with Hisayasu Sato: Part 3 poster
NR

Hisayasu Satô revisits the locations in Shinjuku where he shot "Kyrie Eleison", "Turtle Vision" and "Rafureshia". (bonus feature on the "The Films of Hisayasu Satô: Volume #3" Bluray set released by Vinegar Syndrome).

Walking in Circles: Shinjuku with Hisayasu Sato: Part 3

2026

2010s · 2 titles

1990s · 4 titles

1980s · 10 titles

Behind the camera

Love Letter in the Sand poster
5.8

During a month of unusually heavy rain in Tokyo, a mystery assailant has been brutally assaulting and killing people with a metal bat. When a handsome young man with amnesia is found outside an area hospital, the nurse who discovered him begins to suspect that he may in fact be the assailant. But her own strange erotic fixations with him, and the questionable involvement of the doctor tasked with the amnesia victim, lead them all down an increasingly twisted path of deeply-rooted trauma and violence.

Love Letter in the Sand

1988

Save the Last Dance for Me poster
3.3

The true story of a pair of college students who attempted a double suicide to end their doomed romance becomes fare for legendary pinku-eiga director Hisayasu Sato in this feature. Fatalistic and sad, this is one of the more depressing Japanese softcore films, and Sato makes it even worse by including footage from the lovers’ actual 8 mm experimental film throughout the story

Save the Last Dance for Me

1986

Splatter: Naked Blood poster
5.8

A scientist taints his mother's scientific experiment with his own drug that transforms pain into a pleasurable experience. Unfortunately for the three women involved in the experiment, the drug works a little bit too well.

Splatter: Naked Blood

1996

Rampo Noir poster
5.7

An anthology film consisting of four segments based on literary works by Edogawa Ranpo.

Rampo Noir

2005

OL renzoku rape: Kyonyû musaboru poster
4.0

Following cosmetic surgery to enhance her breasts, an office worker is raped. The rapist's son, after setting his distinctly Oedipal gaze on his father's busty victim, locates her and they begin an ill-fated sadomasochistic affair that leads to a bloody killing spree.

OL renzoku rape: Kyonyû musaboru

1990

Hanra honban: Joshidaisei bôkô-hen poster
5.0

The tale of an alienated young guy eager to discover a way to spend his bills. Financial relief shows up in the form of unknown e-mails directing him to rape women for money, capturing the crimes as evidence of his work. Sordid as his brand new job may be, the aspiring rapist seems to have solved his financial woes, until a feisty young paranormal uses the girl extrasensory powers to resolve the case.

Hanra honban: Joshidaisei bôkô-hen

1990

Uma to onna to inu poster
5.8

Three social outcasts who live near the seaside interact with each other in increasingly disturbing ways. The trio of characters are a woman who has killed her sister, a man who enjoys necrophilia, and a female amnesiac. The first woman engages in sadistic pursuits such as capturing young women at the beach to force them to engage in sexual activities, including copulation with a horse and a dog.

Uma to onna to inu

1990

Gimme Shelter poster
5.1

The mother does half-nude aerobics until her son rapes her, and the daughter falls into bed with a female teacher. Despite the shocking goings-on, the film is much more in keeping with Sato's usual themes of alienation and corrupted innocence than its brutal predecessor.

Gimme Shelter

1986

Lolita: Vibrator Torture poster
5.6

High school student Kozue spreads flyers in search of her missing classmate. A psychopath lures her to his place, where he imprisons her. The psychopath gets his kicks by raping his victims with a chrome vibrator, poisoning them then photographing them as they die. However, when Kozue doesn’t act like his typical victims they start up a strange and twisted relationship.

Lolita: Vibrator Torture

1987

Seifuku nusumi-dori-ma: Gekisha naburu poster
5.2

A high-school girl with a hobby of documenting stuff with her video camera films a woman getting raped in a dirty alley. She get in contact with the rapist and start blackmailing him to let her film when he assaults his victims, whom he chooses because they are all patients of his psychologist sister, and he's been eavesdropping on their sessions.

Seifuku nusumi-dori-ma: Gekisha naburu

1990

Wife Collector poster
5.4

A taxi driving, punk rock listening, serial rapist with a bad attitude picks up female fares, sedates them with gas and takes them to his grungy lair where he video tapes his sexual abuse.

Wife Collector

1985

Turtle Vision poster
5.7

A professional voyeuristic filmmaker is hired to acquire footage of prostitutes; during the process, his camera lands on a woman with a troubled past.

Turtle Vision

1991

Niizuma kahanshin: Washizukami poster
6.3

A deranged doctor lives in an abandoned hospital together with his wheelchair-bound daughter. Frustrated by normal women's perceived imperfections, the doctor kidnaps them and subjects them to sadistic tortures to turn them into subservient women for his childlike daughter to play with.

Niizuma kahanshin: Washizukami

1991

An Aria on Gazes poster
5.2

Housewife Kyoko begins moonlighting at a mysterious sex club as a means of rebelling against her boring salaryman husband Akihito. The Bedroom isn’t like any normal club, though: the female hostesses all take the powerful sedative Halcion to sleep through their encounters with the male clientele.

An Aria on Gazes

1992

Uniform Virgin: The Prey poster
4.2

A sullen horny student stalks female students in the endless hallways of a desolate high school with a video camera. But are his violent and abusive recordings fantasies or reality?

Uniform Virgin: The Prey

1986

Re-Wind poster
5.9

An investigation into a videotape that shows the results of a brutal murder committed using a knife-equipped camera.

Re-Wind

1988

Hana-Dama poster
6.2

Transfer student Mizuki is bullied mercilessly by her classmate. Nevertheless, she is always able to maintain her composure. Kirie, who is also bullied, becomes interested in Mizuki and longs for her. The two become close.

Hana-Dama

2014

Hana-Dama poster
6.2

Transfer student Mizuki is bullied mercilessly by her classmate. Nevertheless, she is always able to maintain her composure. Kirie, who is also bullied, becomes interested in Mizuki and longs for her. The two become close.

Hana-Dama

2014

Silencer Made of Glass poster
3.5

An unstable lab technician develops a crush on her new assistant and uses an unscrupulous man with an unusual device to get closer to her.

Silencer Made of Glass

1991

Shisei: The Tattooer poster
3.3

Seizou, a tattoo artist, dreams of creating lasting works of art that exist long after he passes. One day, he sees the perfect canvas: the unblemished back of a female grad student. A genius in color theory, the young woman studies and experiments with block printing. Seizou kidnaps her, holding her captive in order to carve his artwork into her skin. But the allure of her prints and his enchanting ink-work slowly transform her. She begins to long for his touch. Wanting to surpass the work of his father, Seizou imprints the image of an ancient Japanese princess on her bare skin. But as the tattoo transforms their relationship, their dynamic is reversed, and they become intertwined in an shared destiny.

Shisei: The Tattooer

2006

The Fetist poster
6.9

In the district of Shinjuku, a cut-throat rōnin student crosses paths with an uninspired painter who does the utmost for his envisioned muse.

The Fetist

1998

Muscle poster
5.7

Ryuzaki, an editor of Muscle Magazine, which features photographs of men with sculpted bodies, becomes involved with a man named Kitami; their affair soon becomes dominated by sadomasochistic games, with a horrid result. Jump ahead one year, Ryuzaki is released from jail and goes in search of Kitami, perhaps to make amends.

Muscle

1989

Umagoya no reijô poster
6.0

Yuu is living with her horse Ryusei on the edge of the sea. One day a young researcher and three artists arrive and they disturb Yuu's quasi-telepathic relation with a horse.

Umagoya no reijô

1991

Ki*Ra*Ra poster
4.2

Tired of the belligerence and bad manners of a female customer, two shop owners kidnap her and subject her to a series of sexual assaults and tortures with utensils from the shop.

Ki*Ra*Ra

1990

Bondage Ecstasy poster
5.1

A young office worker turns into an insect. As an insect, he enters the orifices of his enemies and possesses them, allowing him to enact his revenge fantasies.

Bondage Ecstasy

1989

Tokyo Stray Girls poster
4.5

A timid young woman who lives with her domineering mother accepts an Adult Video scout's offer to "become somebody else" by performing in porn videos. As she rises in popularity, the boundaries between her two lives begin to disintegrate.

Tokyo Stray Girls

2010

Lustmord poster
5.0

Eiji, a teenager eager to follow in his late father's scientific footsteps perfects one of his old experiments to diminish the barrier between pain and pleasure.

Lustmord

1987

Megyaku to haji tai takano hitomi poster
NR

Pain and pleasure in the "Bizarre Club."

Megyaku to haji tai takano hitomi

1994

Fuga Music for Alpha and Beta poster
5.7

An abusive psychologist enjoys torturing and abusing his wife. After rough sexual session of pain and dominance she decides to leave her husband. Then her masochistic twin sister arrives and of course plenty of kinky sexual torture and bondage happens next.

Fuga Music for Alpha and Beta

1989

Soft Skin poster
6.4

Minako, a Tokyo housewife, is depressed that everyone has an active life outside the home except her. Taking her inspiration from TV reports of a hitch-hiking chainsaw murderer, Minako decides to spice up her life by finding a young lover and running off with him by faking her kidnapping. While her family frets and worries, Minako has a wonderful time. Eventually, though, she decides it's time to go back to her family. Her lover, however, isn't ready for the fun to end, and Minako's fake kidnapping soon becomes all too real.

Soft Skin

1998

Soft Skin poster
6.4

Minako, a Tokyo housewife, is depressed that everyone has an active life outside the home except her. Taking her inspiration from TV reports of a hitch-hiking chainsaw murderer, Minako decides to spice up her life by finding a young lover and running off with him by faking her kidnapping. While her family frets and worries, Minako has a wonderful time. Eventually, though, she decides it's time to go back to her family. Her lover, however, isn't ready for the fun to end, and Minako's fake kidnapping soon becomes all too real.

Soft Skin

1998

Cute Devil poster
2.6

A man who's having an affair with one of his employees gets his penis cut off by the womans husband while she's watching. This case is big news and a man who claim to be a journalist begin to follow and talking to the wife, convinced that she's a completely innocent bystander.

Cute Devil

2018

Meet Me in the Dream: Wonderland poster
5.6

Young and beautiful germophobe Ritsuko moves into a picture perfect neighborhood with her parents, being monitored by a research team who want to cure her of her debilitating phobias. Will her new neighbors be able to cure her of her irrational view of the outside world, or will coming face to face with this fairy-tale setting only drive her further inside of her subconsciousness?

Meet Me in the Dream: Wonderland

1996

Hitozuma hentai biyoshitsu poster
5.8

This routine effort from cult pinku-eiga director Hisayasu Sato centers around a divorcée who opens a beauty parlor and begins selling sexual services to boost her business.

Hitozuma hentai biyoshitsu

1994

Negation poster
3.2

A mentally disturbed prostitute claims to have lost her baby in a heavy S&M session. As she begins a similar relationship with a man whose wife left him because of his kinky urges, their mutual mental deterioration leads them down a spiral toward a double-suicide pact.

Negation

1993

Survey Map of a Paradise Lost poster
5.8

Reporter Nukada’s next big assignment is the secret world of Japanese phone sex clubs. Midori, a part-time employee at the Banana Club, and Kihara, a client with perverted tastes, are his first targets.

Survey Map of a Paradise Lost

1988

Boko climax! poster
4.0

Director Hisayasu Sato helmed this peculiar tale about a woman known as Locker Baby because she was left in a bus station locker as an infant. Locker Baby is raped by a man clad in black leather, traumatizing her still further, and driving her to sensory-deprivation therapy. Unfortunately, she is raped during the course of the therapy and becomes pregnant.

Boko climax!

1987

Night of Body's Model poster
3.6

Takahashi moves into a new apartment after a divorce and as she tries to settle in, finds that she is having strange and violent dreams and weird things keep happening in her apartment. Her neighbour likes to listen to her through the wall, and becomes increasingly sensitive to her thoughts and feelings. A scientist father and son also live in the building; the son has an obsession with prosthetic body parts.

Night of Body's Model

1996

Birthday poster
5.7

A boy, abandoned by the whole family - torn apart by obsessions, perversions and problems of every kind-start looking at everything around him through the eye of the camera, so that nothing can seem flat and keep up hope. The meeting between these two lonely souls will bring unexpected consequences.

Birthday

1993

Sabaku poster
3.8

This gender-swapped take on the horrific murder case of Junko Furuta shows how Jun Furuta's father tracks down the juveniles who murdered his son to find out why his son had to die and to exact his revenge.

Sabaku

2000