The Films of Hisayasu Sato: Volume #4 Limited Edition [Blu-ray]

The Films of Hisayasu Sato: Volume #4 LE Blu-ray collects three transgressive works from one of the most provocative and uncompromising filmmakers to emerge from Japan’s Pinku Eiga movement.

Spanning more than a decade of Hisayasu Satô’s career, this collection showcases the evolution of the director’s singular cinematic voice — blending psychological alienation, voyeurism, violence and fractured human relationships through experimental visual techniques and unsettling emotional intensity. Moving between bleak existential drama, erotic thriller and absurdist black comedy, these films reflect the boundary-pushing world of Japanese underground genre cinema during the 1980s and 1990s.

Included are Save the Last Dance for Me (1986), a meditation on failed relationships and voyeurism; Survey Map of Paradise Lost (1988), a disturbing descent into obsession and isolation surrounding the phone sex industry; and Soft Skin (1998), a darkly comedic suburban nightmare involving staged kidnappings and media sensationalism. Together, the films form a fascinating portrait of Satô’s recurring themes of loneliness, desire and emotional disconnection.

directed by: Hisayasu Satô
starring: Moeko Izawa, Toru Nakane, Junko Asahina, Tomomi Kuribayashi, Kiyomi Itō, Rio Yanagawa
1986, 1988, 1998 / 60 min, 65 min, 88 min / 1.85:1 / Japanese Mono