Feature film — 1960

Shinran, Part II (1960)

Continuation of the biographical film about the monk Shinran, based on the novel by Eiji Yoshikawa. Shinran, born of the fading aristocratic class, was placed in a monastary on Mount Hiei when still a child. He did not come down for twenty years, when his wanderings begin as he spreads his ideas for achieving enlightenment through the Pure Land sutra. Because his teachings contradict the powerful Tendai sect, he comes to grief with the government, his followers persecuted, himself exiled to far coastal Echigo where he married & began raising a family but soonafter was wandering & teaching again. He lived to be ninety.