Let Him Rest In Peace

Book publisher Kadokawa Haruki muscled in on the Japanese film industry in the 1980s with a string of heavily promoted movie adaptations of his own company’s hit novels, most of them forgotten within a year of first release. Sai’s only film for Kadokawa is one of the few of lasting interest. The story set-up couldn’t be more generic: Shindo (Fuji Tatsuya, the male star of In the Realm of the Senses, 1976) returns to the seaside backwater he came from to settle a longstanding score with yakuza boss Sakaguchi. Along the way he charms a young boy and an impressionable young man, makes a seen-it-all woman care again, busts a few heads and demonstrates a harsh truth about lemons. What makes the film exceptional is its gorgeous visual style and its laconic tone, which is in sync with a decidedly non-generic twist at the climax.