[4] His political stance has been described by critics as moving back and forth between the left and the right: while Ikeru ningyo and Adauchi senshu were considered "progressive", his 1933 propaganda film on Manchuria, Sakebu Ajia (lit.

[11] His post-war reputation relies mostly on his jidaigeki films, starting with Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji (1955), a "well-judged blend of comedy and violence and […] criticism of feudal values" (Jacoby),[11] "[b]oth progressive and nostalgic, humanistic and nationalistic, peaceful and violent" (Craig Watts).

[1] Twilight Saloon (Tasogare Sakaba, 1955), its setting restricted to a tavern over the course of one evening, presented a microcosm of post-war Japanese society and how some of its members dealt with the past war,[11] while in the same year's A Hole of My Own Making, the story of a disintegrating family was mixed with criticism of a Japan which, as one character states, has become an unofficial colony of the US.

[4][11] Between the period films Swords in the Moonlight (1957) and Chikamatu's Love in Osaka (1959), Uchida made yet another contemporary drama, The Outsiders (Mori to mizuumi no matsuri), about the indigenous minority of Ainu on Hokkaido island.

The Master Spearman (Sake To Onna To Yari), Hero of the Red-Light District (Yoto Monogatari: Hana No Yoshiwara Hyakunin Giri, both 1960), and The Mad Fox (1962) again were period dramas, the latter distinguished by its expressionist sets and colours.

[2][3][12] A "monumental crime thriller" (Jasper Sharp)[12] set in post-war Japan between 1947 and 1957, it follows a man who grew up in poverty and wants to start a new life with money derived from a murder.