Synopsis

Seventy-five years after Dazai Osamu’s 1947 publication of The Setting Sun (斜陽), director Kondo Akio and the late screenwriter Shirasaka Yoshio bring to life a story of social displacement within Japan’s dying noble class that followed the heels of WWII:

After leaving behind her family’s dried-up wealth in Tokyo and now at odds with old morals, 25 year old Kazuko (Miyamoto Mayu) pursues an illicit love affair–one that “lives like the sun”–with the popular but contemptible writer Uehara (Ando Masanobu). Her mother (Mizuno Maki), dying of tuberculosis, holds on to the pride of being the last noblewoman while Kazuko’s younger brother, Naoji (Okuno So), finds escape through alcohol and drugs, opposing the aristocratic blood flowing through his veins.