MOVIE REVIEW
Chosyu Five (2006)
「長州ファイブ」製作委員会
Japan – a country which fiercely guarded its international isolation until 1852 – has, 160 years later, become a member of the G8, at the top table of nations worldwide. Its genius with software technology, cars and entertainment is feted globally, with products from Walkmans to Game Boys now ubiquitous in Western culture. This success is all the more amazing when we consider modernity was only introduced to Japan sporadically after 1852, with more rapid technological expansion only arriving after 1945. To be alive at this time in Japan was to live through a whirlwind of change, and not just in how Japan managed the outside world. The feudal system was still in place in the 1860s, with clans of samurai controlling different regions similar to Italy’s city-states, and local conflicts breaking out all the time.