The Sun's Burial

The Sun's Burial (1960) is one of the early films that established Nagisa Oshima as one of more visible directors of the Japanese New Wave movement. He was political in his outlook and used young actors as protagonists to make his observations about contemporary Japan in the postwar era. This is not such a subtle critique of the direction of the era. It is story about how in the postwar era people in Japan are barely surviving by exploiting each other through petty theft, savaging, prostitution, selling human blood illicitly to cosmetic factories , and worst of all by selling people's identities to foreigners. This story takes place in the Kamagasaki district in Osaka, a notorious slum under the Tsutenkaku Tower that is featured prominently  throughout the film along with Osaka castle-two dominant images of Osaka, a noted city of commerce in Japan. The main protagonist and pragmatist and survivor of the challenges of postwar Japan is Hanako (Kayoko Honoo) who plays two groups of yakuza against each other while forming alliances when needed. She is the face of the new pragmatist Japan in  opposition to he character known as the "Agitator" (Eitaro Ozawa), who is a former soldier and follower of the emperor who thinks the future will result in a third war with the US or Russia. Caught in between is a sensitive youth, Takeshi (Isao Sasaki) looking to survive who cannot stomach the violence necessary to get by a a yakuza. Some of the ideas and concepts in the film feel a bit too on the nose. Oshima still seems to be finding his way as a director but there a re number of memorable cinematic images and set pieces. He has interspersed with actual documentary footage of Kamagasaki and uses a red color theme throughout that represent the burial of the rising sun of the Japanese national flag and film title.