Films about Edo/Meiji-era cities

[Ono Seiko and Aaron Gerow]

>If you think about it,
>though, there aren't too many others that deal with city life in the
>Edo/Meiji era.  

There are many more, of course (for instance, the several adaptations of 
_Takekurabe_), but few that I can imagine are readily available in 
subtitled prints.

>In what way do you mean it's "an exceptional time"?

_Ee ja nai ka_ deals with the carnivalesque release of repressed energies 
that was the Eejanaika movement.  While it is representative of the 
multitude of possibilities that exist in the Bakumatsu (see Harootunian's 
work on the Bakumatsu), it would be hard to see that such a release of 
energy was typical of either middle Edo or mid-Meiji.

Aaron Gerow
YNU