Oshima took full advantage of the directorial carte blanche briefly granted him by the surprise box office success of Cruel Story of Youth to create his first truly radical film. Its title an overt homage to Alain Resnais, Night and Fog in Japan explores a similarly uncompromising and politically charged formal language as his New Wave hero by almost entirely restricting the camera to the extended sequence-shots that would become an important signature of Oshima's early work. The camera's restlessly pans back and forth between the polarized factions at a wedding as they debate the failed legacy of the Japanese student uprisings. Written and filmed in total secret from his Shochiku superiors, Night and Fog in Japan's political outspokenness incensed the studio, who pulled the film after only three days and adamantly refused angry critics' viewing requests.