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The Man Who Stole The Sun
THE MAN WHO STOLE THE SUN is a bona fide classic of '70s cinema. It was ranked as the seventh-greatest Japanese movie of all time by the influential film magazine Kinema Junpo, and appears constantly on "Greatest Movie" lists from Japanese critics and directors. Yet this 1979 film remains criminally under-screened in the West. Like EL TOPO or A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, it’s a cult hits that exists so far outside the boundaries of its chosen genre that there’s almost no other film to compare it to. Think DR. STRANGELOVE, only with more action; think DIRTY HARRY, except that the bad guy has a homemade nuke instead of a sniper rifle. Whatever you feel about this movie — and critical assessment ranges from "much too long and somewhat ridiculous" at the time of its U.S. release to "a truly singular work ripe for rediscovery" when it recently screened at the New York Asian Film Festival — THE MAN WHO STOLE THE SUN stands alone.
Makoto Kido (played by Japanese rock star Kenji Sawada) is a hip, long-haired, high-school science teacher who loves chewing gum. Yamashita (Bunta Sugawara) is the buzz-cut-sporting detective who loves chewing scenery. When Makoto is caught up in a school-bus hijacking, Yamashita rescues him, but their haircuts predestine the two to be rivals. Makoto soon decides he wants to hold the world hostage by building an atomic bomb, and assumes the nom de terrorist 'Nine.' His demands include trying to get televised baseball games to be broadcast all the way through without cutting away to news and trying to get the Rolling Stones to play in Tokyo. Yamashita won’t stand for these sort of shenanigans in his city and he forms a one-man army to stop them. Co-written by Leonard Schrader, Paul Schrader’s brother, the film rocks back and forth from political commentary to full-blown action movie with jaw-dropping stunts, macho men who are unharmed by explosions or falls from great heights, and blacker than black humor. A satire that feels like something we shouldn't be allowed to watch, THE MAN WHO STOLE THE SUN is a hard-to-see piece of cinematic wildness.
Event Links
Tickets: https://go.evvnt.com/1583824-0
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/1583824-2
