Kitao Sakurai (born 1983) is a Japanese-American actor, writer, producer, and director of film and television. He is known for directing the 2021

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

film ''

Bad Trip A bad trip (also known as challenging experiences, acute intoxication from hallucinogens, psychedelic crisis, or emergence phenomenon) is an acute adverse psychological reaction to the effects of Psychoactive drug, psychoactive substances, namely ...

''.

Early life and education

Kitao Sakurai was born in Japan in 1983 and raised in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

Career

Sakurai is an actor, writer, producer, and director of film and television. He made his feature directorial debut with ''

Aardvark Aardvarks ( ; ''Orycteropus afer'') are medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammals native to Africa. Aardvarks are the only living species of the family Orycteropodidae and the order Tubulidentata. They have a long proboscis, similar to a pi ...

'' (2010), which was shot in his hometown of Cleveland. He directed '' The Passage'', a

short film A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film o ...

co-written by and starring American comedian Phil Burgers ("Dr Brown"). It premiered at

Sundance A Sun Dance is a Native American ceremony. Sun dance or Sundance may also refer to: Places ;Canada * Sundance, Calgary, Alberta, a neighbourhood * Sundance, Manitoba, a ghost town ;United States * Sundance, New Mexico, a census-designated pl ...

in 2018, and won Best Short Fiction prize at the

LA Film Festival The LA Film Festival was an annual film festival that was held in Los Angeles, California, and usually took place in June. It showcased independent, international, feature, documentary and short films, as well as web series, music videos, episodi ...

, Best Comedy at

Aspen Shortsfest The Aspen Shortsfest is an annual Oscar-qualifying short film festival held in Aspen, Colorado. It is run by Aspen Film, which has also run the feature film festival, Aspen Filmfest, since 1979. History and description Aspen Film was founded b ...

, and the Grand Jury Prize at the

Nashville Film Festival The Nashville Film Festival (NashFilm), held annually in Nashville, Tennessee, is the oldest running film festival in the South and one of the oldest in the United States. In 2016, Nashville Film Festival received more than 6,700 submissions from ...

. He also directed the 2021

film ''

''. He is also known for his work in ''

The Eric Andre Show ''The Eric Andre Show'' is an American sketch comedy television series created and hosted by comedian Eric André. A parody of late night talk shows, it premiered on Cartoon Network's night-time programming block Adult Swim on May 20, 2012. The ...

''. His next project that he will be doing is the live action adaptation of ''

Street Fighter is a Media mix, Japanese media franchise centered on a series of fighting games developed and published by Capcom. Street Fighter 1, The first game in the series was released in 1987, followed by List of Street Fighter video games, six other ma ...

''.

Production company

Sakurai co-founded the New York-based production company Naked Faces, with Andrew Barchilon.

Filmography

As director

*''

'' (2010) *'' The Passage'' (short film, 2018) *''

'' (2021) *'' Twisted Metal (TV series), '' (2023) *''

'' (2026)

As actor

*'' Best of the Best 3: No Turning Back'' (1995) as Justin Banning *'' The Best Bad Thing'' (1997) as Zenny Hata *''

Dogma Dogma, in its broadest sense, is any belief held definitively and without the possibility of reform. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, or Islam ...

'' (1999) as Stygian Triplet *''Aardvark'' (2010) as Darius Szopa *''Treatment'' (2011) as Tennis Instructor *''We Are the Hartmans'' (2011) as Music Video Director

References

External links

* Living people Japanese film directors Japanese male screenwriters Filmmakers from Cleveland 1983 births Japanese male child actors {{US-screen-actor-1980s-stub