Yoshida’s satirical second feature again ferociously critiques Japanese society following its postwar reinvention as a capitalist giant. The employees of a company are facing imminent layoffs, when one salaryman (Keiji Sada) among them attempts to stave off the mass termination by threatening to commit suicide. Interrogating both Japan’s transition into becoming a media-dominated society of the spectacle and the humanism of its leading film artists after the catastrophe of World War II, Blood Is Dry showcases Yoshida’s incisive and idiosyncratic reflections upon the alienation that marked this period of profound social and cultural flux. Print courtesy of the Japan Foundation.