Koichi Sato Filmography

Nobody to Watch Over Me

Actors: Koichi Sato, Mirai Shida, Ryuhei Matsuda, Yuriko Ishida, Kuranosuke Sasaki

Synopsis: A shocking crime brings together a frightened girl and a battle-hardened cop in this drama from writer and director Ryoichi Kimizuka. When two children are found murdered, an eighteen-year-old high school student becomes the prime suspect, and the case quickly becomes a media sensation. As both Read More

The Magic Hour

Actors: Koichi Sato, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Eri Fukatsu, Haruka Ayase, Fumiyo Kohinata

Synopsis: When an ambitious underworld thug proves incapable of tracking down a hit-man for his powerful boss as promised, he convinces a third-rate actor to accept a role for a film that will never get made. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide Read More

A Gentle Breeze in the Village

Actors: Kaho, Masaki Okada, Yui Natsukawa, Koichi Sato, Hiromasa Hirosue

Synopsis: Set against the backdrop of Japan's scenic countryside, director Nobuhiro Yamashita's tale of adolescent love avoids the tear-jerking and virulent social commentary of many first-love stories in telling the tale of a rural schoolgirl smitten by a handsome new arrival from Tokyo. Soyo Migita (Kaho) Read More

Suite Dreams

Actors: Koji Yakusho, Takako Matsu, Koichi Sato, Shingo Katori, Ryoko Shinohara

Synopsis: Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald director Koki Mitani continues to hone his screwball skills with this crowd-pleasing comedy about a hapless hotel accommodations manager juggling multiple responsibilities in preparation for the forthcoming New Year's Eve celebrations set to take place in the lavish Read More

Starfish Hotel

Actors: Koichi Sato, Kiki, Akira Emoto, Tae Kimura, Kazuyoshi Kushida

Synopsis: British-born filmmaker John Williams directs this semi-surreal Japanese-language drama that blurs the lines between reality and fantasy while detailing a mystery fiction-loving salaryman's search for his missing wife. There was a time when Ariso (Koichi Sato) longed to become a writer, but these Read More

What the Snow Brings

Actors: Yusuke Iseya, Koichi Sato, Kyoko Koizumi, Kazue Fukiishi

KT

Actors: Koichi Sato, Kim Kab-soo, Kim Byong-se, Yoshio Harada, Choi Il-hwa

Synopsis: Junji Sakamoto directs this taut spy thriller about the real-life abduction of Kim Dae Jung -- who would later be elected president of South Korea -- from a Tokyo hotel in 1973. Major Tomita (Koichi Sato) is a Japanese intelligence officer specializing in Korean matters. While tailing a North Read More

Mibu gishiden

Synopsis: When the Last Sword Is Drawn opens in Tokyo in 1899, when an elderly man, Saito (Koichi Sato), brings his young grandson to see a local doctor, Ono (Takehiro Murata). Saito notices an old photo of a samurai in the doctor's home and asks him about it. As it turns out, the photo is of Yoshimura (Kiichi Nakai Read More

Inugami

Actors: Yuki Amami, Atsuro Watabe

Synopsis: Masato Harada, who directed such critically acclaimed fare as Bounce Ko Gal and Kamikaze Taxi, rides the wave of Japanese horror flicks that followed the mega-success of Ring with this supernatural tale about moving to the wrong town and falling for the wrong girl. Akira Nutahara (Atsuro Watabe) Read More

Face

Actors: Naomi Fujiyama, Etsushi Toyokawa, Jun Kunimura, Kankuro Nakamura, Ittoku Kishibe

Synopsis: Junji Sakamoto spins this tale of a socially inept yet indomitable woman searching for freedom and self-respect. Set in Kobe at the beginning of 1995, the film introduces Masako (Naomi Fujiyama), a withdrawn, middle-aged woman living above her mother's dry cleaning shop. She rarely leaves the Read More

Shin Jinginaki Tatakai

Actors: Etsushi Toyokawa, Tomoyasu Hotei, Sho Aikawa, Ittoku Kishibe, Koichi Sato

Synopsis: Two old friends on opposite sides of the law are brought together under dangerous circumstances in a taut gangland drama from Japan. Kaneo and Chan-ryon are two men who grew up rough on the streets of Okinawa; when Kaneo accidentally burned down the office of a local crime boss, Chan-ryon saved Read More

Rasen

Actors: Koichi Sato, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shingo Tsurumi, Hinako Saeki, Miki Nakatani

Ah, Haru

Actors: Koichi Sato, Yuki Saito, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Junko Fuji, Keita Okada

Synopsis: Veteran director Shinji Somai lensed this heart-warming family drama about a shabby looking coot claiming to be the father of an elite salaryman. Hiroshi Nirasaki (Koichi Sato) is a securities broker desperately trying to keep the fact that his company is about to go belly-up from his high-strung Read More

Gonin

Synopsis: Get Carter meets Heidegger in this slick, two-fisted gangster epic brimming with furtive sex and shocking violence. The film centers on five poster-boys of Japan's post-bubble economic malaise: Bandai (Koichi Sato), the owner of a once popular nightclub who's up to his fashionable lapels in debt Read More

Tokarev

Actors: Takeshi Yamato, Yumi Nishiyama, Koichi Sato

Synopsis: The Tokarev, similar to a Magnum 45, is used to hold up a Japanese school bus. The driver's son is kidnapped for ransom. Takashi, the son, appears on video asking for the 10 million yen ransom. The ransom is paid but Takashi is found murdered in a garbage bag. His father, Michio takes matters into Read More

Chushingura Gaiden Yotsuya Kaidan

Actors: Koichi Sato, Keiko Oginome, Renji Ishibashi

Synopsis: A samurai and his companions become "ronin" (masterless samurai) when their master is forced to commit suicide after a failed assassination attempt on a corrupt noble. Although they appear to be reduced to begging in the streets, it is all part of their plan for revenge on the noble who caused Read More

The Silk Road

Actors: Koichi Sato, Toshiyuki Nishida, Daijiro Harada, Tsunehiko Watase, Anna Nakagawa

Synopsis: Set in 11th-century China, Silk Road is the story of a young student named Zhao who is travelling with a caravan on "the Silk Road," an ancient trading route. After the caravan is attacked by a group of mercenaries, the leader of the criminals takes Zhao under his wing, so the boy can learn and Read More

The Shadow of China

Actors: John Lone, Koichi Sato, Sammi Davis, Vivian Wu, Roy Chiao

Synopsis: John Lone, the star of the Oscar-winning The Last Emperor (89), portrays a Chinese revolutionary in Shadow of China. Pursued by the Communists, Lone escapes to Hong Kong, where he builds up a multimillion dollar business enterprise. He hopes to use his international clout to effect changes in Read More

Saraba Itoshiki Hito Yo

Actors: Kazuya Kimura, Koichi Sato

Synopsis: Shuji is a good-looking lad, one of the up-and-coming assassins for the Daito mob of the yakuza, Japan's answer to the mafia. Despite his pretense of toughness, he frequently has overwhelming longings to return to his childhood and the innocent games he played then with his best friend's younger Read More

Cyoei No Mure

Actors: Ken Ogata, Masako Natsume, Koichi Sato, Yukiyo Toake

Synopsis: In this drama, Fusajiro (Ken Ogata) is a tuna fisherman who lives alone with his grown daughter Tokiko (Masako Natsume), his wife having left him when Tokiko was still a baby. Now the young woman has fallen in love with Shunichi (Koichi Sato), who would like to learn how to fish tuna for his Read More

Ninguen No Yakusoku

Actors: Rentaro Mikuni, Sachiko Murase, Choichiro Kawarazaki, Orie Sato, Tetsuta Sugimoto

Synopsis: In a wholly serious, somber argument for euthanasia, director Yoshishige Yoshida focuses on a family with an aged and severely ailing grandmother. When police arrive at the family's home to investigate the elderly woman's death, her husband comes forward and says he murdered her. Flashbacks tell Read More

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

Actors: Ken Ogata, Masayuki Shionoya, Hiroshi Mikami, Yasosuke Bando, Junya Fukuda, Toshiyuki Nagashima, Shigeto Tachihara

Synopsis: In Paul Schrader's unusual biopic, Ken Ogata stars as Yukio Mishima, perhaps the most celebrated Japanese novelist of the last five decades. The film begins with Mishima's youth, then moves forward in episodic fashion to his 1970 suicide, symbolically committed at a military site. Originally Read More

Manon

Actors: Setsuko Karasuma, Koichi Sato, Hiroko Isayama, Ichiro Araki

Synopsis: Mitsuko (Setsuko Karasuma) is a woman who moves from one lover to the next -- some of whom get angry at her willingness to turn to other men, others who have been around the block more than once do not particularly care. Even when one of her lovers sacrifices his construction job to be with Read More

Gorath

Actors: Ryo Ikebe, Akihiko Hirata, Jun Tazaki, Yumi Shirakawa, Takashi Shimura

Synopsis: Japanese sci-fi director Inoshiro Honda and special effects wizard Eiji Tsuburaya teamed up again (Rodan, Godzilla, Mothra) for this thriller/adventure. Set in the futuristic 1980, a group of Tokyo scientists discover that Earth is in the direct path of a star with a gravitational pull 6,000 times Read More