{"id":33359,"date":"2026-02-01T15:17:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T20:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=33359"},"modified":"2026-02-01T15:17:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T20:17:12","slug":"the-youth-killer-the-man-who-stole-the-sun-director-kazuhiko-hasegawa-passed-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=33359","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Youth Killer\u201d, \u201cThe Man Who Stole the Sun,&#8221; Director Kazuhiko Hasegawa Passed Away"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><b>\u00a9<\/b>Courtesy of &#8220;The Youth Killer&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Film director <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0367926\/?ref_=fn_t_1\">Kazuhiko Hasegawa<\/a>, known for works such as \u201c<strong>The Youth Killer<\/strong>\u201d and \u201c<strong>The Man Who Stole the Sun<\/strong>,\u201d died yesterday, January 31, at a hospital in Tokyo due to multiple organ failure caused by aspiration pneumonia, Kyodo News reported. He was 80.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Born January 5, 1946, in Hiroshima Prefecture, Hasegawa joined Imamura Productions under director <a href=\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?s=Shohei+Imamura\">Shohei Imamura<\/a> while attending the University of Tokyo, subsequently dropping out. He participated as staff on Imamura&#8217;s film \u201c<strong>Profound Desire the Gods<\/strong>\u201d and served as assistant director on works by Keiichi Ozawa, Shogo Nishimura, and Tatsumi Kamishiro.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">He also worked as a screenwriter, penning works such as \u201c<strong>Love Bandit Rat Man<\/strong>,\u201d \u201c<strong>Retreat Through the Wet Wasteland<\/strong>,\u201d \u201c<strong>Bitterness of Youth<\/strong>,\u201d and <strong>\u201cEvening Primrose<\/strong>.\u201d He made his directorial debut in 1976 with \u201c<strong>The Youth Killer<\/strong>.\u201d Starring Yutaka Mizutani and Mieko Harada, this debut film won first place in the 50th Kinema Junpo Best Ten Awards. In 1979, he released his second directorial work, \u201c<strong>The Man Who Stole the Sun<\/strong>.&#8221;\u00a0Featuring Kenji Sawada and Bunta Sugawara, this film was selected as number one in Kinema Junpo&#8217;s \u201c1970s Japanese Film Best Ten.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">In 1982, he co-founded Directors&#8217; Company with Shinji S\u014dmai, Kichitar\u014d Negishi, Tomomasa Takahashi, Kazuyuki Izutsu, Toshiharu Ikeda, Kazuki \u014cmori, S\u014dg\u014d Ishii, and Kiyoshi Kurosawa. The company produced films such as \u201c<strong>Typhoon Club<\/strong>,\u201d \u201c<strong>DOOR<\/strong>,\u201d \u201c<strong>Sweet Home<\/strong>,\u201d and \u201c<strong>T\u00f4ky\u00f4 j\u00f4k\u00fb irasshaimase<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Hasegawa remained a director whose new work was eagerly anticipated. In 2015, Kinema Junpo&#8217;s late April issue even published a call for project ideas for the \u201cDirector Kazuhiko Hasegawa New Project,\u201d but it never materialized.<\/p>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:block\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1774669342741533\" data-ad-slot=\"1211148813\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a9Courtesy of &#8220;The Youth Killer&#8221; Film director Kazuhiko Hasegawa, known for works such as \u201cThe Youth Killer\u201d and \u201cThe Man Who Stole the Sun,\u201d died yesterday, January 31, at a hospital in Tokyo due to multiple organ failure caused by aspiration pneumonia, Kyodo News reported. He was 80. Born January 5, 1946, in Hiroshima Prefecture,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,20471],"tags":[29634,16672,29639,29635,27707,2861,14934,29636,29641,29637,29638,29640],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>\u201cThe Youth Killer\u201d, \u201cThe Man Who Stole the Sun,&quot; Director Kazuhiko Hasegawa Passed Away<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Film director Kazuhiko Hasegawa, known for works such as \u201cThe Youth Killer\u201d and \u201cThe Man Who Stole the Sun,\u201d died yesterday, January 31, at a hospital in Tokyo due to multiple organ failure caused by aspiration pneumonia, Kyodo News reported. 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