The Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate
Yuzo Kawashima / JP, 1957 / 110 min.
Yuzo Kawashima’s burlesque comedy is set in and around a brothel in 1862 – a time of enormous social and political unrest. The script is by the later renowned Shohei Imamura. New 4K restoration.
1862, a brothel in the Shinagawa red light district. A young samurai who wants the emperor restored while the two most beautiful geishas, Osome and Koharu, struggle to be number one and debt-ridden Osomo sees suicide with a client as the only way out. Cunning Saheiji is finally forced to pay off his brothel debts yet ends up profiting.
Yuzo Kawashima’s burlesque comedy references the Japanese Rakugo comic tradition and is set during the shogunate’s twilight on the eve of the Meiji restoration which would transform isolated, feudal Japan dominated by the samurai into a modern society. Shohei Imamura, who would go on to be one of the founders of the Japanese New Wave co-wrote the script.
New 4K restoration (by Nikkatsu)
images: © Nikkatsu Corporation
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Details
Director
Yuzo Kawashima
Production year
1957
Country
JP
Original title
Bakumatsu Taiyoden
Length
110 min.
Language
Japanese
Subtitles
ENG
Format
DCP
Part of
The Elegant Beasts of Yuzo Kawashima
Japanese director Yuzo Kawashima is seen as the ‘missing link’ between the classic Japanese cinema of the ’50s and the New Wave of the ’60s. He had a highly developed sense of the absurd, and in his films fought against hypocrisy and false facades.
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