The Modern Outcast State: Ichikawa's The Broken Commandment(1962)

Kon Ichikawa's Hakai(The broken commandment) began in 1961 as a televised dramatization ofToson Shimazaki's novel ofthe same title first published in 1906. Toson's pioneering work of social realism created a sensation in this version, and so the director collaborated again with his scenarist wife, Natto Wada, on the film the following year. It, too, was a great success. The prestigious film journal Kinema jumpo ranked it as the fifth-best film of 1962.