The Man Who Stole the Sun

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92%

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User Ratings: 299

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Movie Info

A high-school teacher (Bunta Sugawara) builds an atomic bomb to hold Tokyo hostage, then cannot decide what he wants.

Genre:

comedy
Original Language:

Japanese
Director:

Kazuhiko Hasegawa
Producer:

Kei Ijichi, Mataichirô Yamamoto
Writer:

Kazuhiko Hasegawa, Leonard Schrader
Runtime:

2h 27m

Cast & Crew

Bunta Sugawara
Inspector Yamashita

Kenji Sawada
Makoto Kido

Kimiko Ikegami
Zero Sawai

Kazuo Kitamura
Tanaka

Shigeru Kôyama
Nakayama

Kei Satô
Dr. Ichikawa

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Critic Reviews for Taiyo o nusunda otoko (The Man Who Stole the Sun)

All Critics (1) | Fresh (1)

"The Man Who Stole the Sun" seems to be a movie that has both everything and nothing, and that is where its biggest value and its cult status lies.

July 26, 2020 | Full Review…

Panos Kotzathanasis
Asian Movie Pulse

View All Critic Reviews (1)

Audience Reviews for Taiyo o nusunda otoko (The Man Who Stole the Sun)

Jul 31, 2015

By day, Makoto ' Bubblegum' Kido(Kenji Sawada) is a mild-mannered high school science teacher. By night, he steals a gun which he then uses to steal plutonium from a nuclear power plant. His plans get interrupted when a World War II veteran(Yunosuke Ito) hijacks the full school bus he was trying to sleep on. Thankfully, Makato and Inspector Yamashita(Bunta Sugawara) are able to subdue the hijacker, allowing Makato to return to his plans. You must forgive "The Man who Stole the Sun" for being a little on the long side, for it has a lot of territory to cover. Among the issues that it explores that are important to Japan when this was made in 1979 and no less relevant today are standardized testing, baseball games being interrupted on television(apparently Japan has never had its Heidi Bowl), nuclear weapon proliferation, nuclear power in general, the lack of decent rock music, treatment of war veterans, and the general stagnation of society. This is nowhere near as dry as it sounds, as the movie handles such difficult topics in a frenetic and suspenseful fashion that is also deliberately over the top at times. All of which is in the service of also showing how heroes can also be villains and vice versa.

Walter M Super Reviewer