Directed by Nagisa Oshima • 1968 • Japan
Starring Yung-do Yun, Kei Sato, Fumio Watanabe
Genius provocateur Nagisa Oshima, an influential figure in the Japanese New Wave of the 1960s, made one of his most startling political statements with the compelling pitch-black satire DEATH BY HANGING. In this macabre farce, a Korean man is sentenced to death in Japan but survives his execution, sending the authorities into a panic about what to do next. At once disturbing and oddly amusing, Oshima’s constantly surprising film is a subversive and surreal indictment of both capital punishment and the treatment of Korean immigrants in his country.
In this piece, produced in 2015, Asian-film critic Tony Rayns discusses DEATH BY HANGING and its continued social relevance.
Directed by Nagisa Oshima • 1965 • Japan
Director Nagisa Oshima investigates Japanese-Korean relations in DEATH BY HANGING, a subject he earlier explored in this experimental 1965 documentary, the heartrending portrait of an impoverished South Korean boy.
