Bakumatsu Taiyoden - Bakumatsu Taiyoden

Japanese: 幕末太陽伝 - ばくまつたいようでん

A Nikkatsu film produced in 1957. This is the masterpiece of director Yuzo Kawashima, who made his debut with Shochiku in 1944 and made a total of 50 films for various companies over the 20 years since, including comedies of manners and melodramas, and was called a "genius" for his talent and talent as a comic writer before his sudden death at the young age of 45. In Japan, it is considered a masterpiece of "unconventional" comedy films. Kawashima Yuzo, who believed that depicting modern Japan would ultimately result in a comedy, used the classic Edo rakugo story "Ikori Sahei" and other "Kuruwamono" (red-light district) stories as material, setting the story in 1862 and entangling the world of samurai, who were torn between loyalists and supporters of the shogunate, with the world of townspeople, in a "Grand Hotel" format. It is a masterpiece that depicts modern times through the lives of Sahei (Frankie Sakai), a fictional character created by Edo townspeople as an ideal image of the samurai class, and Takasugi Shinsaku (Ishihara Yujiro), a historical loyalist and member of the "Sun Tribe" of the time, in a turbulent era.

Source: Heibonsha World Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition Information

Japanese:

1957年製作の日活映画。1944年に松竹でデビューしてから20年間に風俗喜劇，メロドラマなど各社で合計50本の作品をつくり，戯作者的な資質と才気によって〈鬼才〉ともよばれ，45歳の若さで急死した川島雄三監督の代表作であり，日本では〈異色〉の喜劇映画の名作とされる。　日本の〈現代〉を描いていけば究極的に喜劇になる，と考えていた川島雄三が，江戸古典落語の《居残り佐平次》その他の〈廓（くるわ）もの〉を素材に，時代を文久2年(1862)に設定して，勤皇と佐幕にわかれて揺れ動く武士の世界を町人の世界にからませた物語を，〈グランド･ホテル形式〉で構成，江戸の町人が武士階級に対する理想像としてつくりあげた架空の人物である佐平次(フランキー堺)と，歴史上の勤皇の志士で当時の〈太陽族〉でもあった高杉晋作(石原裕次郎)の，動乱の時代における生きざまに託して，〈現代〉を描いた傑作である。

出典　株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典第２版について　情報

<<: Smoke tree

>>: Embassies sent abroad at the end of the Edo period