Kōichi Saitō (cinematographer)
Encyclopedia
is a Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese cinematographer
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...

 who has often worked with pink film directors Takahisa Zeze
Takahisa Zeze
is a Japanese film director and screenwriter best 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 .-Life and career:...

 and Hisayasu Satō
Hisayasu Sato
is a Japanese exploitation film director. He has worked prolifically in the pinku eiga genre. His best known works are the pink film The Bedroom , and the V-Cinema splatter film Splatter: Naked Blood . He is known for his "sledgehammer" filmmaking style, and using his exploitation career to tackle...

. Saitō also worked with all nearly every director of the post-Heavenly King generation at Kokuei studio.

In his Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema, Jasper Sharp writes that Saitō is probably the best cinematographer currently 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
Pink Grand Prix
The or is an annual Japanese film award ceremony which recognizes excellence in the pink film. Known as the "Academy Awards of the Pink Film", the ceremony attracts a diverse audience of industry personnel, film scholars and the general public....

.

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
Bashing (film)
is a 2005 film by Kobayashi Masahiro. It premiered at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival where it was nominated for the Palme d'Or.-Cast:* Fusako Urabe - Yuko* Nene Otsuka - Yuko's step mother* Ryûzô Tanaka - Yuko's father* Takayuki Katô - Ex-boyfriend...

, a film Saitō photographed, was shown in the competition at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

.

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