Mishima's widow boycotted Paul Schrader's 1985 film, and his children won a copyright suit over his letters

Yukio Mishima died by seppuku on 25 November 1970, aged 45, after a failed attempt to rouse the Self-Defense Forces at a Tokyo base. He left his wife Yoko, whom he married on 1 June 1958, and two children, Noriko and Iichiro. Yoko always denied his homosexuality after his death. Paul Schrader's film "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters" depicted his bisexuality and radical politics. His widow boycotted it, and the Japanese distributor Toho-Towa withdrew support and cancelled its Japanese release. A 1984 Hollywood Reporter item said she had withdrawn a promise to cooperate^†. In 1998 the writer Jiro Fukushima published an account of a 1951 relationship with Mishima, including fifteen of Mishima's letters. Mishima's children sued Fukushima and the publisher Bungeishunju for copyright infringement. The court ruled for the children, finding the letters expressed Mishima's own feelings and views. The film had its first Tokyo screening about 40 years later, a retrospective on 30 October in the centenary year of his birth, 2025.