Assassination

Midnight Eye review... Assassination (Ansatsu, 1964, director: Masahiro Shinoda). "...Historically Shinoda is most firmly associated with the mould-breaking group of young directors who produced work outside of the studio system in the 60s and were known as the Japanese New Wave. The New Wave is said to have been initiated in the late 50s when Shochiku gave the green light for three of its younger directors to make their debuts while still under the age of 30. The films of the trio, Nagisa Oshima, Yoshishige (a.k.a. Kiju) Yoshida and Shinoda himself, suggested a break from the traditional filmmaking practices of Japan's second golden age as represented by the internationally-feted works of Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi. In truth however, the New Wave was never a real movement as such, with the directors encompassed under this descriptive umbrella all coming from radically different politicial backgrounds and working under different production circumstances."