Eijanaika/ええじゃないか

Eijanaika (ええじゃないか) is a historical film with the setting right before the Meiji Restoration in 1868. The politics was in a turmoil, because of the changes in the social and economical structures. In this film, the protogonist was Genji and his wife Ine. Genji was a Japanese that had a ship wreck six years prior to the beginning of the film. He was rescued by American sailors, and lived in the United States for several years. He came back to Japan, have plans to take Ine, his wife, to the United States with him. Ina, originally thought Genji had died, was sold by her brother and father to a rich daimyo, Kinzo. Since then, she had lived as a prostitute and entertainer in Edo.

Genji believed that he could live a free farmer in the United States. He tried hard to persuade Ine to go to the United States with him, but Ine, believe that Japan was her homeland, was not willing to go to United States with Genji.

Genji had picked up some American values when he lived in the United States, such as equality between people (Japan was feudalism at that time, where commoners had to obey the samurais and daimyos). Because of political instability, the food price had surged, and many people were fed up on how rich some of the merchants had became. Genji and his brother-in-law led a group of protesters and started to destroy the houses of the merchants. They tried to hide in their old village but someone in the group betrayed them by telling the soldiers of their hiding place. Genji's brother-in-law was killed by the soldiers.

Some of the villagers started to dislike Genji, because they felt that he was an American, instead of a Japanese. Genji fought back on the village chief when the chief tried to talk to him. Because of that, Genji had a criminal record and was not able to go back to the United States. He was stuck in Japan, taking odd jobs from Kinzo, not realizing that Kinzo had other ideas in his mind.

Near the last scene when Genji organized the dance

Near the end of the film, Genji organized a group of jobless people, and formed a large group of protesters-dancers that wanted to march to the Imperial Palace in Edo. Ginzo was ordered to stop the crowd with a group of soldiers, but he did not fire. That was shown to the other daimyos as a sign of weakness. Because weakness was not tolerated in Japanese society, the other daimyos killed him with a firing squad, along with Genji.