TheTTThe Sun in the Last Days of the ShogunateS hogunate originally released on 14 July, 1957 / directed by Yuzo KAWASHIMA

【Synopsis 】 Set in the last few years of the shogun's rule, this period/ensemble movie depicts the lives of the young and the restless at a whorehouse. The protagonist is Saheiji, a resourceful, witty free spirit.

It's 1862, 6 years before the Shogun turned his political power over to the Emperor. Penniless Saheiji splashes out at a famous Shinagawa whorehouse. He's forced to stay on at the whorehouse to repay his debt. At first Saheiji is regarded as an unwelcome guest who never leaves but it turns out he is not just a poor grifter. None of the whorehouse's guests, hosts, servants and attending ladies are innocent but they are pragmatic schemers. Saheiji soon endears himself to them all and solves many whorehouse disputes with his wit. But it is slowly revealed that the seemingly perfect Saheiji is suffering from tuberculosis and his future is uncertain...

【About the Movie 】 Director Yuzo Kawashima described the theme of his film, as 'positive escapism .' Let's look at the elusive filmmaker behind this elusive comment.

Recognition of Yuzo Kawashima's talent as a filmmaker is long overdue. He was a filmmaker Shohei Imamura, the two-time winner of the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or prize, idolized. Kawashima was born in 1918, 20 years after Kenji Mizoguchi, the greatest Japanese film auteur and 8 years prior to Imamura, and about the same time as the Swedish movie giant Ingmar Bergman.

In cinema history, Kawashima belonged to the generation that bridged the giants of the golden studio era such as Mizoguchi, Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa and the younger generation of Imamura and Nagisa Ohshima. French counterparts for Kawashima would be Jacques Becker and Jean-Pierre Melville, the vital generation that bridged Jean Renoir and French New Wave cinema. Kawashima's influence on Imamura was immense. Imamura assisted his master as 1st Assistant Director and contributed to his screenplays (as he also wrote this movie). After Kawashima died in 1963 at the age of 45, Imamura wrote and published a book in homage to Kawashima which he dedicated to the deceased director. Kawashima was indeed a cinematic mentor to Shohei Imamura.

Imamura researched Kawashima's birthplace, in the northern rural region of Japan which resulted in a movie called The Insect Woman , one of his masterpieces. For this movie he used Sachiko Hidari, one of the stars in The Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate. Imamura went on to employ The Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate's screenwriter, Keiichi Tanaka (also known as Hisashi Yamauchi) for his own movies such as Endless Desire and Pigs and Battleship . Imamura is intrinsically linked in our minds with Kawashima and the network of filmmakers Kawashima formed.

The Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate is regarded as one of Kawashima's most remarkable movies. It secured a special place in film history when Akira Kurosawa selected it as one of the 100 classic Japanese movies. A discussion of The Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate's unique qualities is best seen from the perspective of earlier Japanese cinema. The whorehouse (known as Yukaku, which means literary "a fun mansion") was used as a backdrop in Mizoguchi's movies to highlight the tragic lives of prostitutes. The Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate, on the other hand, ignores the tragic element. Saheiji, the film's protagonist, belongs to the working class (somewhere between nobility and peasants). In Ozu's movie he would have been a morally upright character but Kawashima depicts him in a more daring role as an amoral, dogged survivor. Unlike the samurai in Kurosawa's movies, Saheiji doesn't use swordsmanship to free himself from the matrix of feudal class oppression but rather he uses wit to survive.

Kawashima was more pragmatic than idealistic. In his movies, there is no room for sentimentalism and heroism. It's never about tragedy or morality. Even when dealing with the samurai era, his movies reflect a modern mentality that's raw and never romanticized.

As mentioned earlier, Kawashima described the theme of The Sun in the Last Days of

the Shogunate as 'positive escapism.' He also said he found it easier to depict negative characters than positive ones, because he empathized with them more. This influence is evident in Imamura's movies as he also chose criminals and fugitives for his protagonists.

The Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate was filmed after the Anti-prostitution Act had been proposed in parliament. It was passed in 1956 and put in effect in April 1958. The prostitution trade that had survived since the samurai era was about to disappear. Which is why the movie opens in contemporary Shinagawa, in 1957, before it reels back in time.

Incidentally there was another movie about prostitutes and the Anti-prostitution Act made at the same time. It was Kenji Mizoguchi's last movie, Street of Shame (1956). Coincidentally, both Street and The Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate were scored by Toshiro Mayuzumi. Mayuzumi composed abstract electronic music for Street and Dixieland style jazz tunes for The Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate . Both Mizoguchi and Kawashima requested that the score was unique and different to Japanese cinema convention.

Street of Shame is a perfect example of the difference between Kawashima and Mizoguchi as filmmakers. Typically, Mizoguchi dramatizes the inescapable tragedy of being a woman, as he did in The Life of Oharu (winner of the International Prize at Venice International Film Festival, 1952). But Kawashima never based his drama around tragedy or ideology. His characters were vital survivors. Kawashima's take on Street of Shame theme was Suzaki Paradise, Red Light/Suzaki Paradaisu Akashingo , another milestone in Japanese cinema, also penned by Yoshiko Shibaki of Street of Shame.

Another point about The Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate is its unique narrative use of rakugo comedy. Rakugo is a traditional one-man comedy act on stage, similar to standup comedy in style, only in rakugo, the comedian sits on the stage. The traditional influence of rakugo in Japanese popular culture is evident and it can also be found in Akira Kurosawa's The Lower Depths (1957). Kurosawa adapted Maxim Gorky's novel of the same name and retold the story in rakugo style.