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Recently voted one of the five best Japanese films of all time in a poll of 140 critics taken by the venerable journal Kinema jumpo, and considered by many to be the best Japanese comedy ever made (!), THE SUN LEGEND OF THE END OF THE TOKUGAWA ERA was co-written by Imamura, who also acted as assistant director. Towards the end of the Edo era, a crafty commoner, Saiheiji, works at a geisha house to pay off his bill there. He makes a deal with a samurai revolutionary to supply the floor plans of the British consulate so it can be torched, if the samurai will help a young girl to escape from the brothel. Kawashima's satiric vision is characteristically dark, sparing only Saiheiji, whose rebelliousness and secret sickness seem to reflect the director's own character and condition. Everyone else, from the greedy couple who run the brothel to the conspiring samurai to the geisha who wants to escape, are all in some way corrupt, foolish, or gross. “Kawashima's comic masterpiece” (Gregory Barrett).
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