[5][6] On his first night in Tokyo, he met a woman who lured Sono into a hotel room where she put a knife to her own throat and threatened to commit suicide if he would not help her meet her parents pretending to be her husband.

Sono not only agreed but spent several weeks with her family in the countryside, but in the end the woman let him go and gave him a small amount of money.

Sono spent some time in the cult but found it extremely funny how the main priest claimed to be God.

Even though the cult was not yet as mighty and powerful as it is nowadays, it strictly prohibited its members to return into normal life and was not easy to get away from.

To save himself from the cult, Sono decided to join the terrorist group that was protesting against expansion of the Narita International Airport.

Two years later, in 1987 Sono won the PFF Gran Prix with his film Otoko no Hanamichi (A Man's flower road).

The PFF scholarship he spent to create the next movie, his first feature-length 16 mm film Bicycle Sighs (Jitensha Toiki), a coming-of-age tale about two underachievers in perfectionist Japan.

[10][11] In 1990, Sono moved to San Francisco, and was admitted to University of California, Berkeley; however, he never attended class, or learned English, instead spending his time watching B-movies and porno movies.

[16] Armed only with their creative ideas and art, group members ‘led a guerilla war against normalization of solitude and loneliness in everyday life’.

[17][18] In the following years, Sono directed works such as the drama I Am Keiko (1997),[19] the faux-documentary Utsushimi (2000), and the pink film Teachers of Sexual Play: Modelling Vessels with the Female Body (2000).

[22] In 2005, Sono also released three other films: Into a Dream (Yume no Naka e), a coming-of-age tale about the life of a theatre group member, Hazard, a crime film shot in New York City, (which was wide released in 2006) and Strange Circus, where Sono worked not only as director and writer, but also as composer and cinematographer.

[23] In 2008, Sono directed and wrote the 237 minutes-long epic Love Exposure, which is widely considered his most acclaimed and popular work to date.

[29][30] In 2011 and 2012 respectively, Sono released two drama films inspired by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster and Tohoku Earthquake: Himizu[31] and The Land of Hope.

In the same year, he wrote and directed a 9-part horror mini-series titled Tokyo Vampire Hotel, which was produced and released to streaming by Amazon.

[42][43] In 2019, Netflix released The Forest of Love, a crime film written, directed and co-edited by Sono, inspired by the murders of Japanese serial killer Futoshi Matsunaga.

"[47] Sono is considered an auteur,[48] with his style being characterized by features such as grotesque violence, extreme eroticism, philosophical references, surreal imagery, and complex narratives.

Sono released a statement on his website apologizing to everyone he may have disturbed and admitting his "lack of consideration and respect for others" as a filmmaker, but denied many of the allegations and said he would defend himself in court.