[6] Sai won the Best Screenplay award at the 11th Yokohama Film Festival for A Sign Days.
[7] In 1999, he shot The Pig's Retribution, a film set in the lavish natural scenery of Okinawa, inspired by the 1996 Akutagawa Prize-winning eponymous novel by Eiki Matayoshi.
[citation needed] Sai directed Blood and Bones, a film starring Takeshi Kitano.
[8] He has also directed films such as Marks,[9] Doing Time,[10] Quill,[11] Soo[12] and Kamui Gaiden.
[citation needed] Sai died of bladder cancer at his home in Tokyo, on 27 November 2022, at the age of 73.