A Flame at the Pier

Dockworkers are organising in Yokohama. A young worker stands against that organising. The reason is a personal debt. He believes his boss saved his life when he was a baby. So he is bound to him. He works against the union. In time he begins to doubt what he has been told. What his loyalty rests on is not solid. A system of deceit and revenge has been built around him. He is inside it himself. At the same time the film is about class conflict. On one side there is a strike that drags on. On the other there are cocktail tables. The original title speaks of tears falling on a lion’s mane. Toru Takemitsu wrote the music. Takashi Fujiki, Mariko Kaga and Kyôko Kishida appear in the ninety two minute film, a Japanese production Masahiro Shinoda finished in 1962.