Double Suicide of Sonezaki
In Japan, suicide has long been used as a form of social protest. In this film, set in 1703, the emergence of a new merchant class transforms samurai culture. Elements of the social contract are starting to fall apart, and some unscrupulous people took advantage of these changes before the social order was restored. A rich merchant gives his clerk an I.O.U. instead of wages in this story. When the impoverished clerk presents the paper to the merchant for payment at the agreed-upon time, the man becomes enraged and claims he never wrote it and that the clerk is attempting to defraud him. Then he orders his henchmen to beat the clerk.
Released: 1978-04-29