Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate

“Kawashima was completely different from the so-called great directors who always strive for perfection. He had an extremely distorted way of looking at the world. He abhorred and mocked exaggeration at all times. He was always against authority and striving to eliminate hypocrisy.”

– Shōhei Imamura, My Teacher

The ensemble comedy masterpiece directed by Imamura’s mentor Yūzō Kawashima, co-written with Imamura and Keichi Tanaka, takes place mostly within a high-class brothel in the Shinegawa district right before the end of the Shogunate. A critique of the Meiji Restoration period, the film exposes the encroachment of Westernisation in Japan, against rapidly dissipating ideas of honour and tradition, as sacred promises are ruptured, and deception offers the only turns to fortune.

Imamura wrote about the making of the film: “When, during the writing of the screenplay, I asked him what the film was really about, Kawashima answered: ‘About the positive flight,’ but I didn't have the faintest idea what he meant by this. In any case, this film is essential for an understanding of Kawashima.”

Although much has been written about Imamura’s working relationship with Ozu, experts including Audie Bock, Max Tessler and James Quandt have emphasised that Yūzō Kawashima’s off-beat, individualistic comedies have had a huge influence on Imamura’s style.

Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate (幕末太陽傳 or 幕末太陽伝), dir. Yūzō Kawashima, Japan 1957, Japanese with English subtitles, 110 min.