Sightlines · reception
How The Man Who Stole the Sun was received
1979 · Kazuhiko Hasegawa · The Man Who Stole the Sun on Sightlines
The arc
A box-office disappointment in 1979 that critics adored from day one — it took #2 in that year's Kinema Junpo poll — and its stature has only grown: by 2009 the same magazine ranked it the seventh-greatest Japanese film ever made, a placement that still startles people who've never had the chance to see it.
What’s debated
The perennial fan debate is why a film this beloved in Japan spent decades nearly impossible to see in the West — plus whether its wild tonal swings and 147-minute sprawl are excess or exactly the point.
Its footprint
In Japan it's a genuine touchstone, name-checked by generations of musicians, comedians, and filmmakers, with pop idol Kenji Sawada's bubblegum-chewing science teacher an indelible image; abroad it circulated for years mostly as a bootleg legend, 'the greatest Japanese film you've never seen.'
Where it stands
A cult object turned canon fixture — enshrined near the top of Japan's critical pantheon while remaining a word-of-mouth discovery for everyone else, which is precisely the mystique Letterboxd loves.
Did you know? Despite it being eventually ranked among the greatest Japanese films ever, director Kazuhiko Hasegawa never made another feature — this was his second and last film, and he spent the following decades mentoring young filmmakers through the Directors Company instead. (Bonus trivia: it was co-written by Leonard Schrader, Paul Schrader's brother, who was living in Japan at the time.)