The Dawn of Asia

A TV drama consisting of thirteen episodes about the trans-China/Japan collaboration of revolutionaries in the early twentieth century. It was Nagisa Oshima’s rare attempt to direct a TV drama in a social atmosphere in which Japan was embracing postwar prosperity as well as the effects of permeating mass media. Making an effort to reach out to the mass audience through a seemingly conventional method of filmic representation, Dawn of Asia takes up the epic of trans-Asiatic solidarity while challenging nationalism on both sides.

• Cast: Shinsuke Mikimoto, Akiko Koyama, Kei Satō, Rokkō Toura, Noriko Matsumoto, Hōsei Komatsu, Hideo Kanze, Mari Yoshimura