Takiji Kobayashi (1903-33) was a Japanese writer who began his life in rural poverty and was tortured to death by the Imperial Police in 1933. In the Japan of the '20s and '30s, any criticism or dissent from the official line was punishable by death. Kobayashi, a leftist, violated those strictures, and, subsequently, distribution of his works was restricted until after the Second World War, when he was recognized as one of the great Japanese writers of this century. He loved a woman (a prostitute) who would not marry him, and married yet another, all the while struggling to write despite the inhospitable climate of the times. This drama re-creates episodes in Kobayashi's short but eventful life. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi