The Sun Legend of the End of the Tokugawa Era

No film better portrays the decline of late Edo society and the death of the samurai than this one. Kawashima's film shows us how the poverty-struck samurai exploit their hereditary position in society while rest suffers. Then the modern, educated man comes and liberates people form the samurai. Even the loyalists serve as a mere side-plot in his film, which makes this film better than all other Bakumatsu jidai-geki.