For a major part of his career as a film composer, Masaru Sato was associated with two of Japan's most internationally renowned cultural icons: Akira Kurosawa and Godzilla (or Gojira, as he is known in Japan). Born in Rumoi in northern Japan, Sato trained as a composer and entered the movie industry in 1952 at Toho Studios, and became closely associated with the movies of Akira Kurosawa at the end of the decade, writing the scores for Yojimbo (which was later remade as A Fistful of Dollars and Last Man Standing), Sanjuro, High and Low, and Red Beard. Over the course of his career, Sato wrote the music for over 300 movies, including Godzilla Raids Again (released in the United States as Gigantis, The Fire Monster), the first sequel to Ishiro Honda's Godzilla, and Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster (aka Ebirah, Horror of the Deep), Son of Godzilla, and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. His final score was for the movie After the Rain, which was based on a Kurosawa script. Sato's scores for Kurosawa's movies helped make him one of Japan's most widely exposed film composers. His work on the Godzilla movies always stood somewhat in the shadow of Akira Ifukube, who wrote the music for the first Godzilla movie and most of the major titles that followed. At the same time, his work on those movies resulted in the release of his soundtrack LPs and CDs, which were eventually exported to the United States and Europe, thus giving him far more exposure than virtually any film composer (other than Ifukube) in Japan. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi