Yûgo Sasô

Yugo Saso was born in Shiga, Japan. At the age of 18, he moved to Vancouver, Canada. He studied acting at Gastown Actors Studio and participated in many local theatre productions and independent film productions. In 1998, he moved to Taiwan where he lived for about a year and a half. In 2000, Yugo got an opportunity to play a principal role in a feature film "To End All Wars" along with Robert Carlyle and Kiefer Sutherland. For the next four years, he worked with former Imperial Army translator Takashi Nagase who is the model of Yugo's role in "To End All Wars" and traveled around Thailand, Myanmar, Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea for the memorial services and the remains of the War dead searches and participated in peace activities to face the real post-war issue. In 2007, Yugo auditioned for a film "United Red Army" directed by Koji Wakamatsu and played Koichi Teraoka who was executed during Asama-Sanso Incident. Later, Yugo fortunately got acquainted with Teraoka's mother and she kindly shared generally unrevealed bereaved family's perspective towards the incident with Yugo. In 2009, a short film "Jitensha" in which Yugo played a lead role, was officially selected by 66th Venice International Film Festival of Corto Cortissimo. And Yugo received the Award for Best Actor at 5th SAPPORO Short Fest. In 2011, the director and the writer of "Jitensha" joined once again with Yugo for the upcoming short "Persimmon".