“Ginza’s Story” is based on Yujiro’s hit song about the hopes and dreams of Japan’s young people.

wmt-love.in.ginza.1962.japanese.720p.hdtv.x264.mkv

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https://nitro.download/view/B9F22376903E899/wmt-love.in.ginza.1962.japanese.720p.hdtv.x264.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:None

The post Koreyoshi Kurahara – Ginza no koi no monogatari AKA Love in Ginza (1962) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
In this musical Cinderella story, Chiemi Eri plays Midori, a sales girl for Camelia oil from the island of Oshima, with a talent for singing. Her talent is discovered and her career takes off, finally giving her the chance to perform at a venue in the prestigious Marunouchi area of Tokyo. The film’s climactic show is a gorgeously impressive spectacle.
This lively musical comedy is typical of the youth-oriented cinema produced at Nikkatsu in the midto late-1950s, when the studio courted the generation that was coming of age in the newly prosperous, liberal, democratic Japan. The film marked a collaboration between two of Japan’s most popular stars. As part of a trio of young actresses and singers who worked collectively under the billing of sannin musume (‘three girls’), Eri was seen last year at Bologna in the Toho production, Janken musume (So Young, So Bright, 1955). Here, she works at Nikkatsu alongside Yujiro Ishihara, who, after making a dramatic star debut in Ko Nakahira’s story of delinquent youth, Kurutta kajitsu (Crazed Fruit, 1956), had quickly became one of Japan’s most celebrated actors. As Michael Raine writes, “by 1958, [he] was the biggest male star in Japan” and “epitomized the sensitive tough guy in cinema and in popular music”. Both stars were to sustain successful careers both onscreen and in music, but were sadly to die, still relatively young, in the mid-1980s. Director Sunohara (1906-1997) was a successful commercial filmmaker at Nikkatsu and Toei, with around eighty films to his credit.
The “Kinema Junpo” reviewer praised the improved quality of the Konicolor process, saying that the film brought that process one step closer to the quality of Eastmancolor. Although critical of the film’s overall incoherence, which he partially attributed to the director’s inexperience with the musical genre, he praised star Eri for her singing and dancing, which he saw as the finest in the film, as well appreciating Ishihara’s sweet vocal cords.

Jazz musume tanjo.avi

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Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Masahisa Sunohara – Jazz musume tanjô aka Birth of a Jazz Child (1957) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Western audiences associate Japanese popular cinema with monster movies and period dramas such as samurai films but, as with most national cinemas, comedies and musicals were industry mainstays. Very popular with domestic audiences, they were generally considered not to travel well. Janken Musume (Janken Girls, also known as So Young, So Bright) is a good 1950s example.

Japanese tradition is emphasized in the opening shots of Kyoto and orderly columns of uniformed schoolchildren. But not for long: we soon find a comic dozing teacher and two girls on the bus expressing their boredom with shrines and temples. Shortly after, Ruri (Misora Hibari) and Yumi (Chiemi Eri) fall into the river, spend the night with a french at Ruri’s mother and meet maiko (apprentice geisha) Pyua-chan (Yukimura Izumi). Tomboy Yumi reveals that she has never worn a kimono; Ruri and Pyua-chan sing and dance a traditional number, but Pyua-chan prefers jazz and mambo, which she, in traditional costume, and Yumi, in a dress, dance together. The film explores tensions between traditional and modern attitudes, and between Japanese and foreign cultures, as they manifest themselves in these three teenage girls, amid sleepovers and great romantic and family dramas: Ruri, raised by her single-parent geisha mother, needs to resolve the problems posed by her wealthy father and his wanting to adopt her; Yumi has a budding romance with the same boy who Pyua-chan hopes will save her from the geisha life.

At another level, the plot serves as a vehicle for three popular singers who were brought together for the film (and its sequels). Misora Hibari was Japan’s most popular 1950s singing star. In a key sequence, the girls decide to change their mood and go off to the ‘Girls’ Opera Grand Show’. Each girl in turn closes her eyes and imagines herself performing on stage: Pyua-chan sings and dances a cha-cha-cha in Japanese and English; Yumi performs the mambo ‘Happy, Happy Africa’; Ruri sings ‘La Vie en rose’. They come across as elegant, confident, international young women, ideal versions of themselves.

Most of the film’s numbers, traditional or modern, real or imagines, are performances; even when Pyua-chan sings ‘Smile’ (in Japanese), she has to tell herself to sing. Only in the closing roller-coaster sequence do the girls ‘break into sing’: each sings a solo (Pyua-chan sings ‘Mambo Jambo’, Yumi the cha-cha-cha ‘Blue Sky’ and Ruri the ‘Rendezvous Song’) before all three together sing the ‘Rock, Scissors, Paper’ song that opened the film. This celebration of triumph over their various dilemmas is given only a slightly unreal feel for the intercutting between very obvious rear projection for the song close-ups and location long shots of the roller coaster itself. Janken Musume was Toho’s biggest hit of the year and spawned sequels and imitations. Though it owed much of its success to its starring popular singers, the film no doubt played out the cultural dilemmas of its youthful audiences. Certainly, it is a fascinating document as well as a charming movie.

Some Japanese musicals were closer to the Hollywood model. Kimi mo shusse ga dekiru (You Too Can Succeed, 1964) builds on the popular ‘salarymen’ comedies: Toho sent its personnel to the US to familiarise themselves with Broadway, and the film is clearly influenced by both How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, then one of Broadway’s most successful shows, and the movie version of West Side Story. More recently, cult auteurs Miike Takashi and Suzuki Seijun gained notice for their musicals The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001) and Princess Raccoon (2005). Both are too eccentric to be considered mainstream, but Linda Linda Linda (directed by Yamashita Nobuhiro, 2005) is closer in spirit to Janken Musume.

-Jim Hillier (BFI Screen Guides: 100 Film Musicals)

	
So.Young.So.Bright.1955.DVDRip.x264-KG.mkv

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Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:Japanese vobsub,English

The post Toshio Sugie – Janken musume AKA So Young, So Bright (1955) first appeared on Cinema of the World.