Six years after his 1981 Film Muddy River (Silver Prize winner at the Moscow International Film Festival) and 1984 Production For Kayako (Georges Sadoul Award winner), Oguri Kohei directed The Sting of Death which is based on a novel by Toshio Shimao, one of the greatest writers of modern Japanese literature. The film is set during the high economic growth period that Japan experienced in the 1950s and 1960s. Through the downfall and recovery of a married couple, it poses stirring questions for modern Japanese society. It examines the very source of the couple and the family as a form of social intercourse, and graphically depicts the character of the Japanese people in the post-war era using the shi of the Shishonetsu (an I novel similar to the Ich-Roman and unique genre in Japanese literature). A film whose poetic imagery gushes forth with emotion and of striking beauty, The Sting of Death is definitely a masterpiece of Japanese cinema.Jury Prize and FIPRESCI Prize, 1990 Cannes Film Festival
