Hasegawa Kazuhiko became a legend by directing only two films, Seishun no satsujinsha (1976) and Taiyô o nusunda otoko (The Man Who Stole the Sun, 1979), the first voted number one in the illustrious «Kinema Junpô» poll of critics that year, the second number two. While such limited productivity was never his choice, in many ways these two masterpieces, if not Hasegawa himself, matched an era that itself was short-lived.