About

In this subversive and surreal satire from Japanese New Wave provocateur Nagisa Ōshima, a young Korean man known only as R receives the death penalty in Japan. Despite being seemingly-successfully hanged, he miraculously survives his own execution. The twice-born R has no memory of his identity, nor the violent crimes of which he was convicted, confounding his jailors. Through a series of increasingly elaborate and bizarre theatrical re-enactments, they must get R to accept his own guilt so that they can justify executing him again.

By turns deeply macabre and shockingly funny, Death by Hanging is a politically-charged fusion of New Wave filmmaking techniques and acerbic Brechtian theatre that takes aim at the legacy of state-violence and racism in post-war Japan.

Please note: this film contains themes of sexual assault.

Ages 18+