The Walking Nuclear Disaster: Nuclear Terrorism and the Meaning of the Atom in The Man Who Stole the Sun

The Man Who Stole the Sun, though generally neglected overseas, retain legendary status in Japan, dealing with issues regarding nuclear power, atomic bombs, and ecoterrorism in a blockbuster filled with black humor and action. In this chapter, I analyze The Man Who Stole the Sun as a film that wittingly exploits and subverts genre conventions, turning the “slow violence” linked to nuclear power precisely into a (comic and absurdist) spectacle. Hasegawa has a clear antinuclear stance and he envisions a character who builds a nuclear weapon with his own hands yet soon starts to show the symptoms of radiation exposure. Turning him into what I call a “walking nuclear disaster” has a twofold effect: it makes this form of slow violence visible on the very body of the protagonist for the audience to acknowledge it, and it questions the alleged difference between “bad” atoms (used for military purpose) and “good” atoms (used for producing nuclear energy) and related containment policies, challenging the myth of safety supported by the so-called nuclear village.