The Lower Depths: The Cinema of Shohei Imamura
Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate
The ensemble comedy masterpiece directed by Imamura’s mentor Yūzō Kawashima, co-written with Imamura and Keichi Tanaka offers a sly critique of the Meiji Restoration period, as 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.