Film Details

This period drama is the greatest work by a promising young Japanese filmmaker of the 1930s who died in Manchuria (at age 29) 13 months after his masterpiece was released. Set in 18th-century Edo (Tokyo), the film is a compassionate portrait of an unemployed samurai, his wife, and their impoverished neighbors—all leading hardscrabble lives in a shabby slum plagued by crime, where notions of heroism and honor have lost their meaning. Garrett Washington, visiting assistant professor of history at Oberlin College, will introduce the film and lead a post-film discussion.