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Dear Summer Sister (alternate English title: Summer Sister), released in the US in 1985, was completed in 1972 by Japanese director Nagisa Oshima. Hardly the most important work of this prolific filmmaker, it probably earned a non-Japanese release on the strength of Oshima's 1983 critical success Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. Summer Sister, like many of Oshima's films, is an experimental exploration of moral corruption, partly based on a true story. Its uncompromising viewpoint was evidently not widely appreciated by Japanese filmgoers of the period, inasmuch as Oshima was forced shortly afterward to relinquish his independent-filmmaker status. Dear Summer Sister was originally titled Natsu no imoto.