Masaru Satō
Known For: Sound
Gender: Male
Date of Birth: May 29, 1928
Day of Death: December 5, 1999 (72 years old)
Place of Birth: Rumoi, Hokkaido, Japan
Masaru Satō (佐藤 勝) was a Japanese composer of film scores. The youngest of six brothers, all of them music lovers, Masaru Sato decided early in life that he wanted to be a composer. His models were two other composers born, as he was, on the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido: Akira Ifukube and Fumio Hayasaka. After hearing Hayasaka's score for Rashomon (1950), Sato decided Hayasaka was the only one he wanted for his teacher. He absorbed much of Hayasaka's modernist leanings, and grew to know Hayasaka's best friend Akira Kurosawa during this period. The year 1955 was a vast turning point for Sato: after scoring numerous insignificant pictures for various studios in Tokyo, Sato won the assignment for Gojira no Gyakushu (1955). Then his teacher Fumio Hayasaka died tragically young, while finishing the score for Kurosawa's Ikimono no Kiroku (1955). Sato stepped in to complete the score, uncredited. Kurosawa was sufficiently pleased with Sato to use him for all his pictures for the following ten years. Though the two had a falling-out after Akahige (1965), Sato remained one of Japan's most in-demand film composers, returning to the Gojira series several times and remaining a favorite of many other directors such as Kihachi Okamoto and June Fukuda. After scoring Dun-Huang in 1987, Sato had to call a brief halt to his career in order to tend to family interests in real estate in his native Hokkaido; but within a few years, the problems were wrapped up, and Sato was able to go back to film composing full time, at last reaching and surpassing his 300th movie score. Sato is almost unique among Japan's prolific film composers in that he has written extensively for his chosen field, but has never written for the concert stage.
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1983
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Our Teacher
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Lowly Ronin 5: The Teenage Orphan Girl
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Adrift at Sea
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The Geisha
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Lowly Ronin 6: Betrayal at Yatate Pass
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Secret of the Forbidden Valley
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Lowly Ronin 4: Living Hell
1982
1981
1980
1979
1978
1977
1976
1975
1974
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Demon Spies
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Lupin the Third: Strange Psychokinetic Strategy
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The Family
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Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla
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Aoba shigereru
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Machi no Hi
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Violent Streets
Music Arranger
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla
1973
1972
1971
1970
1969
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Goyokin
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Shinsengumi: Assassins of Honor
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Tenchu!
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The Magoichi Saga
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Samurai Banners
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Vagabond Schemer
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The Great Japanese Pick-Pocket Club
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Travels of Lord Mito
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Red Lion
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Battle of the Japan Sea
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Admiral Borneo: Betting at the Equator
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Forward, Young People!
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Futari no Koibito
1968
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Kill!
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My Brother, My Love
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Judge and Jeopardy
Music
Hishakaku and Kiratsune: A Tale of Two Yakuza
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Golden Eyes
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The Human Bullet
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Admiral Yamamoto
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Young People
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Scrap Collectors
1967
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Son of Godzilla
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The Age of Assassins
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Organized Violence II
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Organized Violence
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Japan's Longest Day
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Portrait of Chieko
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Sodachi zakari
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Three Faces of Love
1966
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Ebirah, Horror of the Deep
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Moment of Terror
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Thirst for Love
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Koto—The Lake of Tears
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Cash Calls Hell
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The Sword of Doom
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Zero Fighter
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The Mad Atlantic
1965
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Three Yakuza
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Fort Graveyard
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Red Beard
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Cold Rice, Osan, Chan
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Ironfinger
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Samurai Assassin
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Sanshiro Sugata
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喜劇 各駅停車
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Stairs of Evil
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Rokujō yukiyama tsumugi
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The Tattooed Lord
1964
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The Desperate
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Samurai from Nowhere
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Oh, Bomb!
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Jakoman and Tetsu
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Raised in a Palace
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Juvenile Delinquents
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The Sharks
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Life of Hishakaku 3
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間諜
1963
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High and Low
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A House in the Quarter
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Samurai Pirate
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The Elegant Life of Mr. Everyman
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Life of Hishakaku 2
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Life of Hishakaku
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Tale of Army Brutality
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Zoku ôsho
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Legacy of the 500,000
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Okashina yatsu
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Warring Clans
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Modern Children
1962
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Sanjuro
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Operation Enemy Fort
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あの空の果てに星はまたたく
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The Ambitious Youth
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Gekkyū dorobō
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The Great Kurobe
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Our Failures
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零戦黒雲一家
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Operation Sewer Rats
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Burūtaun aoi machi no ōkami
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Facing to the Clouds
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The Crimson Sky
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Otoko no Uta
1961
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Yojimbo
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Run, Genta, Run!
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Blueprint of Murder
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Procurer of Hell
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Lord Mito: Struggle of Suke and Kaku
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Challenge to Live
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Blood on the Sea
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Gambler in the Sea
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Yabure Kabure
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Taiheiyō no katsugiya
1960
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The Bad Sleep Well
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Chikuhō no kodomotachi
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The Last Gunfight
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Westward Desperado
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Intimidation
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Man Against Man
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Man at the Bullfight
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Sixteen years old
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Girls Behind Bars
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The Gambling Samurai
1959
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Desperado Outpost
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Someday I'll Know
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The Praying Man
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The Age of Our Own
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Gigantis, the Fire Monster
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A Man Explodes
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I Want to Be a Shellfish
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I Will Challenge
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We Live Today
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Kamen no Onna
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The Stream of Youth
1958
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The Hidden Fortress
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Rusty Knife
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A Slope in the Sun
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Oban kanketsu hen
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Half Human: The Story of the Abominable Snowman
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The H-Man
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Crimson Wings
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The Man Who Wagers Tomorrow
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Akutoku
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Song for a Bride
1957
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Throne of Blood
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The Lower Depths
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I Am Waiting
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The Living Koheiji
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Zoku Ôban: Fûun hen
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Zokuzoku Ôban: Dotô hen
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Ôban
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Last Days of the Samurai
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Muhō Ichidai
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Streetlights
1956
1955
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I Live in Fear
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Half Human
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Godzilla Raids Again
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Taira Clan Saga
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Tactics of Love
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The Samurai of Edo
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Six Assassins
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Ootone no Taiketsu