Yoichi Sai
Yoichi Sai (born Choi Yang-il; July 6, 1949 – November 27, 2022) was a Korean film director who worked in Japan. He served as the president of the Directors Guild of Japan. Sai was born in Nagano Prefecture, Japan; his mother was Japanese and his father was a Zainichi Korean.
He won the Best Screenplay award at the 11th Yokohama Film Festival for A Sign Days. In 1999, he directed The Pig's Retribution, a film set in Okinawa inspired by Eiki Matayoshi’s novel, which won the Don Quixote prize at the Locarno International Film Festival.
Sai directed Blood and Bones, a film starring Takeshi Kitano. He also directed Marks, Doing Time, Quill, Soo, and Kamui Gaiden. As an actor, he appeared in Nagisa Oshima’s Taboo (1999) and Masahiko Nagasawa’s The Thirteen Steps (2003).
His 2004 film Blood and Bones won four Japanese Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Screenplay for Sai; he had previously received two nominations in the same categories for All Under the Moon.
Sai died of bladder cancer at his home in Tokyo on November 27, 2022, aged 73.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 20:38 (CET).