• 幕末太陽傳 (The Sun Tribe and the Dying Shogunate)

8/7/21 (Sat), 9:30-11:30p, home

Kawashima Yuzo’s 1957 star-studded farce, headed by comedian Frankie Sakai, was at one point rated by Japanese critics as the fourth greatest Japanese film ever made, right up there with Tokyo Story and The Seven Samurai – how’s that for a recommendation? I was suspicious given the slapstick nature of most Japanese comedy of those years, but curiosity eventually got the better of me. I’m glad it did.

The Japanese title, Bakumatsu Taiyoden, was rendered online as Sun in the Last Days of the Shogunate (I’ve switched that for my own title). In fact, “sun” here is a jokey reference to the so-called “Sun Tribe”, groups of nihilistic youth that featured so prominently in books and movies at the time. That was reinforced with the appearance of idol Ishihara Yujiro, who is playing essentially the same disaffected Sun Tribe youth role that propelled him to stardom a year earlier in the sensational Crazed Fruit. (That’s true as well for his tribal cohort, the tall half-Danish hunk Okada Masumi, whose exotic looks stand out in this period piece; a running joke has him repeatedly reassuring doubters that he is a Japanese born in Shinagawa.) Bakumatsu is a word used to describe the final years of the dying shogunate (bakufu), which the characters at the time of course wouldn’t have known was dying despite the evident signs in the air. The inn portrayed here is the actual location where Ishihara’s character plotted the 1863 burning of the British Embassy that is reenacted in the film’s climax. Having Ishihara in this historical role is like dressing James Dean in waistcoat and powdered wig and placing him at Valley Forge in “Yankee Without a Cause”. That suggested that the film would be a topical parody filled with inside jokes whose relevance has long since died out. That it succeeds nevertheless is a testament to the strength of the concept and writing.

The film opens curiously with a brief prologue in modern-day Shinagawa in the same red-light district where the samurai story is set. The 1950s government has just passed an anti-prostitution law (the subject of numerous films, the best being Mizoguchi’s Street of Shame) that will put an end to a 300-year era for that storied area. Shinagawa was the entryway to the shogun’s headquarters in Edo, the city now known as Tokyo, for travelers coming from Kyoto, and this section of the town right along the main road was known for its lodgings and other pleasures. The modern-day narrator mentions explicitly that the story we’re about to see takes place just a few years before the shogunate collapsed with a wink to the perceived parallels, such as the American soldiers seen walking the streets and entering the brothels in reflection of the foreigners who are making their presence felt in Edo. That tone made more sense when I discovered that the film was co-written by Inamura Shohei, whose own later films took a notably caustic view of Japan’s postwar relations with the US (see Pigs and Battleships). As it happens, the film was made just before the massive Anpo riots protesting the US-Japan Security Treaty, so it was fairly prescient regarding the attitudes of the youth towards the visible American military. Imamura presumably wanted to take the film more in that direction, which would have made it a period piece. Fortunately Kawashima wears his politics lightly and concentrates on the comedy, which still works wonderfully today.

The setting is a brothel. The owners are a devout Buddhist couple dealing with (1) a wayward son with no ambition or talent, (2) a deadbeat carpenter client who is being pressured by them to sell his daughter to pay off his debt, and (3) two rival prostitutes who each view themselves as the brothel’s top attraction (a view separately encouraged by the owners). The prostitutes energetically run from room to room balancing multiple clients simultaneously, promising each that he is her heart’s desire. Even without the film’s modern-day introduction, the timeframe of the piece is clear as the couple’s sutra reading is set against a kilted band of foreign bagpipers marching loudly through the streets, symbolizing the increasing presence of foreigners as the clock ticks on Edo.

Staying at the brothel is a group of knowingly cool samurai, the Edo version of 1950s greasers, who resent the foreigners as a threat to Japan. The leader, played by Ishihara, has been to foreign-occupied Shanghai and seen what could lie in store for their country. (Ironically Shanghai was later occupied by Japan, but let’s not go there.) Given that samurai owe their existence to the shogunate system, they’re obviously unhappy with developments and look to do something about it. These Angry Young Samurai have come to Shinagawa in order to burn down the British Embassy in nearby Gotenyama. The bumbling youngsters are not the sharpest swords around, but Ishihara keeps things under control.

Meanwhile, a group of partiers led by the irrepressible Sakai has run up debts elsewhere in the brothel that they have no way of paying. Sakai, a drifter with a nose for opportunity, lets them slip away at dawn and talks the owners into letting him stay and work off his debt. That allows him to secure room and board for himself while he pursues financial rewards from the patrons in exchange for his bottomless bag of services. Want your watch fixed? Got it. Want to get out of prison? Got it. Want to keep from being sold into prostitution? Got it. Want to untangle your promise of marriage to both a father and son? Got it. He manages to get involved in the affairs of just about everyone at the brothel in one way or other, making him the film’s primary linking device.

There’s no way to easily summarize the wild strands of the story thereafter, but as with any good farce, all come together cleverly at the end. While there are numerous sight gags, like a samurai who has eaten explosives (don’t ask) and Sakai running around frantically trying to service everyone, the story gets its humor logically from character and story. My favorite sequence was the astonishing no-holds-barred battle between the brothel’s two stars, which has the camera chasing them inside, outside, upstairs and downstairs in a ferocious cat fight. What makes it work here as elsewhere is that their personalities have been set up so well that even this wild scene feels organic. Moreover, the camera is practically a character in itself throughout the film, barely stopping for breath as events barrel along. The director maintains a firm hand, bringing the smart script to blazing life. The film ends on a bittersweet note as Sakai, who has disguised his constant cough as a mere cold, reveals that he has TB. Having solved everyone’s problems here, he leaves ironically through a graveyard in a final comic sequence and goes off to his next adventure even as the foreign mission is still burning.

The show is tightly constructed, and the plot with its wide panoply of characters and situations is convincingly resolved. Sakai is pretty much irreplaceable as the endlessly energetic drifter, handling both the wit and physical comedy with assurance. He is the key to the film. Ishihara is basically playing himself given that the character was designed with him in mind, and he does it very well. Minamida Yoko and Hidari Sachiko were also standouts as the rival prostitutes, but there’s really not a dud in the large cast. Whether it’s the fourth-best Japanese film ever is another story – it’s moved down the annual list in recent years, if only slightly – and some of the cultural references are bound to be lost on non-Japanese audiences. But it’s a raucously fun romp to be sure. Recommended.