What constituted the Japanese New Wave is still fiercely debated by scholars, critics, cinephiles, and filmmakers. Similar to its counterpart in France, it was, on the one hand, a movement in cinematic modernism led by younger and rebellious filmmakers who condemned directors of the older generation as ossified and lacking a conscious engagement with the social and political reality of the time. On the other hand, the movement occurred within the commercial studio system, as the term ‘Japanese New Wave’ itself was a variant of the ‘Shochiku Nouvelle Vague’ that the major studio Shochiku used in publicity. Several of the new generation of filmmakers, for instance, all emerged from Shochiku and could be said to internalise company strategies while also undermining its system from within.