[1][2] He was initially a movie stills photographer at Nikkatsu before launching his own production company, Saito Productions, and directing his first film, Sasayaki no Jō, "a low-budget, independent film with a visual flair that earned comparisons with Claude Lelouch and with Richard Lester’s Beatles films, including A Hard Day’s Night".

[2] Some of his first films were youth movies featuring Group Sounds music.

He came to prominence in the early 1970s with a series of movies about young people escaping to or searching for their identity in the countryside.

[3] His Tsugaru Jongarabushi was selected the best film of 1973 in the Kinema Junpo poll of critics.

[2] He was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun (4th Class, Gold Rays with Rosette) in 2000.