“In Dear Summer Sister, Oshima examines the subject of Okinawa, recently returned to Japan by the United States. It is not forthright polemic or political tract, but rather an extroverted melodrama, with symbolic overtones, regarding the Japanese attitude toward its new possession. It is a sly satire on colonialism, too, as it takes the situation of a young teenage Okinawan girl who is searching for a youth who may (or may not) be her half-brother. This quest gives Oshima a chance to utilize a number of cinematic devices, for either documentary or comic effectiveness. The delightful heroine also manages to question matters of heritage, blood relationships, and the status of Okinawa and its future under Japanese rule. She encounters an incredible collection of characters during the film, and one cannot help being amused by their strangeness and the dilemma concerning the heroine's father, a Judge who wants to remarry. Dear Summer Sister becomes a complex comedy of legitimate illegitimacies, with some gentle malice behind the laughter.” San Francisco Film Festival, 1972